Yes, you read that right. The three-year-old HTC HD2 can run Android Jelly Bean, thanks to a port by some enterprising chaps.
So if this can run Jelly Bean, surely pretty much any Android handset can, right?
The XDA-Developers are the ones who’ve pulled off this feat. The HTC HD2 was announced back in October 2009, making it nearly three years old. It usually runs Windows Mobile 6.5 – that’s right, it’s a pre-Windows Phone handset. And the 1GHz processor pales in comparison to most modern mobiles’.
It’s not a perfect port though. Video playback doesn’t work. Or the camera. Or the ability to use it as a USB mass storage device. The browser display looks all iffy. Some apps won’t work. Oh, and Google Now tends to crash.
But other than that, it’s spot-on.
Joking aside, the fact this ageing handset can run Jelly Bean at all is a huge achievement. Hopefully Google will see this and find a way to get Android 4.1 working on pretty much any Android device. Ice Cream Sandwich is still only on 10 percent of devices, and that’s nine months after release. It’s this kind of fragmentation that made even ex-Google bigwigs choose to develop for other operating systems. And it leaves us consumers out in the cold.
Android Jelly Bean has also been ported to run on the Amazon Kindle Fire, effectively turning it into a Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 officially goes on sale on Thursday, or if you’ve got a Samsung Galaxy Nexus you should be able to update to Jelly Bean right now.
Source: Pocketnow
