A1-840 lollipop

saywot
saywot Member Posts: 64 Troubleshooter

Please tell me this isn't true.

 

I have had this machine for 4 days and it has already received all the software/firmware updates from ACER it will ever get, despite me having at least another 11 months and 26 days of warranty left the only support from the manufacturer will be for a catastrophic hardware failure !

 

CNET have said in their review that " no date for Android 5.0 has been announced yet" however the review is a year old.

 

Are these things being sold with only the minimum after-sales support allowed under law ?

Answers

  • saywot
    saywot Member Posts: 64 Troubleshooter

    After a week and almost 3 score of viewers there's not a single suggestion or reply.

  • saywot
    saywot Member Posts: 64 Troubleshooter

    So what I have been told is true.

     

    Whatever OS/Firmware is on the machine is all that ACER will ever give you.

     

    I wish they'd take back half the pre-installed rubbish that I can't get uninstall, it might make the already outdated and insecure version of Android run a bit better.

  • silentintrigue
    silentintrigue Member Posts: 8 New User

    Sorry it is true. Acer sells great hardware with TOTALLY OUTDATED SOFTWARE THAT THEY WILL NEVER UPDATE. You got it right, Acer ABANDONED YOU. It is bad enough the sell tablets that are 3 android versions behind with no hope of an update. But it is unconscionable that my iconia A1-840fhd, only 6 monthe from purchase still has android 4.4.2  with the STAGEFRIGHT VULNERABILITY BROKEN AND UNPATCHED when every other company has issued a patch for it. Realistically I should not use this A1-840fhd tablet because it is unsecure and unsafe. Acer sold me a tablet that is essentially unusable because my information is unsecure. Last acer I will ever buy. Support your products and customers are loyal and adore you. Abandon customers after purchase and they DESPISE you.

  • saywot
    saywot Member Posts: 64 Troubleshooter

    I posted this question over 9 months ago.

     

    It's quicker to grow a new human than to get a response from ACER.

     

    I'm don't understand why this company doesn't update their machines, they get the OS for free, it's not as if they have to pay for anything like they do to Microsoft.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,565 Trailblazer

    saywot wrote:
    I'm don't understand why this company doesn't update their machines, they get the OS for free, it's not as if they have to pay for anything like they do to Microsoft.

    The bulk of the cost for an Android OS is porting it to the hardware, not in licensing fees. Microsoft does the porting for you so you only have to look at any specialized hardware you've added and even then most of the hardware manufacturers do drivers for you. With Android you start with an OS that works on the reference design, but you have to port pretty much everything to your hardware. You can get a bit of it done for you by the hardware manufacturers, but that only helps some. It's a significant task to get everything running, using hundreds or thousands of man/hours which equate to lots and lots of personnel expenses.

     

    To do an update to the OS is basically starting over again, redoing that port for every part of the OS that has changed since the reference release you started with when you first designed the product. It's not unusual for an update to requires essentially the same costs as the original port, since so much of the OS has been changed.

     

    If the company does enough volume to support those costs as a percentage of units sold, they can do updates. If the costs outweigh the profits then you can't do updates. Unfortunately, though Acer is a large corporation, the sales of Android tablets are a small enough percentage of total revenue that they can't justify porting new versions of the OS.

     

    At least that's what it looks like to me... Since I'm not an Acer employee (and even if I were it'd be unlikely that I would have access to real data) it's just speculation. But it's speculation that seems to match what we see happening in the real world.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • saywot
    saywot Member Posts: 64 Troubleshooter

    A long reply, but either confusing or misleading.

    Are you saying that the developers (usually one person, maybe 2) over at XDA spend hundreds, maybe thousands of hours re-writing all the driversn etc etc for the existing Acer hardware for people to do their own upgrades for rooted devices ?

    This is unlikely.