If your phone runs Froyo, it should run Gingerbread

Since its debut earlier this week, Gingerbread has become a hot topic among current Android owners. Everyone wants to know whether they can get Android 2.3 and, if so, when they can expect it.

So far, HTC is the only handset manufacturer to indicate the latest release is coming to a handful of their products. LG, however, put a scare into their users yesterday when it stated via Facebook, that its Optimus line of phones would not see Gingerbread.

Though the new Optimus handsets run Android 2.2 "Froyo," the Optimus line allegedly won't see the update because the phones have a 600MHz processor, and the minimum requirements for Gingerbread require 1 GHz processor.

LG's source for this information remains to be seen, but it's likely this was a rumor that started back in the summer. According to a podcast featuring Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-Review, Gingerbread was said to have minimal hardware requirements that included a 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, and screens of 3.5-inches or larger. But a few days after that article broke, Dan Morril, a member of the Google Android team, shot the story down by saying it was made up. Also, LG has since pulled the article from its Facebook page.

It's very possible that whoever was handling LG's Facebook account didn't know the entire story and accidentally fanned the flames. Once word got out that the Optimus phones wouldn't handle the update, Morrill followed up with another tweet. In a nutshell, it said that if your phone can run Froyo, it can run Gingerbread. In a related move, Eldar Murtazin also chimed in this week, adding that the processor and memory specs aren't so much required as recommended.

Keep in mind, however, that most phones are at the mercy of the carrier. At the end of the day, they'll make the decision as to whether to continue to support older devices or to pursue pushing new smart phones out the door.

Earlier phones with very little memory, like the G1, just don't have the room to load Froyo or Gingerbread. At least, officially. Developers like the team behind Cyanogenmod have been getting older phones to handle Froyo features for quite some time.