Google has announced that the first smartphones with Android Go, a stripped-down version of Android Oreo, will be announced next week. Then it’s Mobile World Congress. Shortly afterwards, the devices should actually be in the store.
The internet giant made this known in a blog post written in response to the Mobile World Congress that starts next week. A number of manufacturers will show new smartphones there, and Google already reveals that there are devices that run on Android Go. However, more details have not been disclosed, so it is still not clear which manufacturers will come with such devices.
Android Go is intended as a lighter version of Android and requires less memory to run, and is mainly intended for smartphones with 512MB to 1GB of ram. There will also be special, custom apps for Go that place less demands on the hardware. For example, Google has developed a lighter version of YouTube, which should also be able to handle a slow mobile internet connection better.
The lighter version of Android came out at the end of last year and is therefore available to manufacturers. However, no smartphones with the software have been released yet. The current version of Android Go is based on Android Oreo, which is currently the most recent version of the OS.