Bharti Airtel has announced that it has partnered with Google to bring the Android Oreo Go Edition-powered smartphones to India. The brand has announced that entry-level smartphones will be a part of Airtel’s ‘Mera Phela Smartphone’ initiative and it will be shipped in the country starting from March this year.
Lava and Micromax will manufacture the first set of Android Oreo (Go Edition) smartphones. The brand also revealed that the upcoming devices will come loaded with a host of Airtel apps like MyAirtel App, Airtel TV, and Wynk Music. Additionally, the handsets will also have apps like Google Go, Google Maps Go, Gmail Go, YouTube Go, Google Assistant Go, and Files Go.
“Android Go will provide a massive boost to our efforts to bring affordable smartphone options to the market and potentially enable hundreds of millions of feature phone users and unconnected people to get online. We are excited to collaborate with Google and our device partners to work towards this shared vision of bringing smartphones within the reach of more people,” Vani Venkatesh, Chief Marketing Officer – Bharti Airtel, said in a statement.
For the unintended, Google recently announced its ambitious Android Oreo Go edition. The Go edition was first announced at Google I/O 2017 and it meant for low-end devices that run with 512MB to 1GB of memory. The aim is to provide the latest Android updates to the masses and it will be available as a part of Android 8.1 release.
The latest Android Oreo (Go edition) is specially optimized for the entry-level handsets and it includes better performance along with built-in data management features and security benefits. The brand has also designed a new set of Google apps including includes Google Go, Google Assistant Go, YouTube Go, Google Maps Go, Gmail Go, Gboard, Google Play, Chrome, and the new Files Go app, which are meant to be lighter and it will smoother on the entry-level devices. Further, Google has created a new section that recommends popular apps that are tuned to run well on entry-level smartphones. The company says that the phones running Android Oreo (Go edition) will hit the shelves in early 2018.