Razer Phone receives long-awaited Android Oreo 8.1 update

The gaming-centric Razer Phone has officially been upgraded to Android Oreo 8.1, bringing more software robustness to the multimedia powerhouse hardware. 

Razer’s debut phone – which builds upon the Nextbit Robin’s original recipe with high-end gaming spec like a 120Hz display refresh rate and 8GB of RAM – launched with Android Nougat, Google’s 2016 mobile operating system.

The jump to Android Oreo brings about several improvements, though only a few of them are visible in the user interface. Most notably, notification dots will make seeing which apps deserve your attention much easier. Picture-in-picture is one of those feature you’ll never be able to do without again, whether you use it for navigating in Google Maps or watching YouTube videos while multitasking.

Like the Essential Phone, the Razer Phone is skipping vanilla Oreo (no pun intended) and opting for 8.1, the latest release ahead of Android P. But why? Razer hasn’t shared, but it’s possible that again, like Essential, it deemed the now-outdated version to have too many stability issues.

When will see you see the software update? All Razer Phones are transitioning from the developer preview to the final 8.1 update within the next ten days. Along with the jump to Oreo, Razer is celebrating by announcing availability of Razer Phone at Best Buy. The gaming company can now focus on crafting an even better Razer 2 Phone.

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