14 DAY TRIAL // Although HTC promised that the Gingerbread update for Desire Z smartphones will be available in Spring, it appears that the handset manufacturer forgot to push the upgrade in the UK.
Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread was deployed all over Europe more than two weeks ago, but it seems that UK owners have been left without the upgrade until today.
HTC has yet to make any official announcements, but HTC Desire Z users living in the UK have already reported that the update is now available and ready to be installed on the smartphones.
As expected, the update is pushed OTA (over the air) to all unbranded Desire Z devices regardless of their network operator.
However, it is unclear what happens for those who own branded variants of the HTC Desire Z, as the Taiwanese handset maker has yet to make any statements.
The update has about 104MB size and brings several enhancements and new features, along with Android 2.3.3 firmware.
It appears that the update will be rolled out slowly to all unbranded HTC Desire Z devices in UK, so users should not panic if they don’t receive any notification immediately.
The update can also be pulled manually by going to Menu / Settings / About phone and force the phone to search for the latest Android 2.3.3 software update.
As soon as the installation is complete, the phone will reboot. Users are advised to check if the update installed correctly by going to Menu / Settings / About phone. The firmware build should be 2.42.405.2 after the installation.
Once the download of the update is complete, the smartphone will prompt to install. The installation process will take around 15 minutes and during this time the device will not be usable.
According to the latest hearsay, Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) brings along HTC Sense 2.1 user interface, but this is unclear for the moment.