Last July, Qualcomm—the company better known for their processors—decided to dip into the hardware world and released their own device, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. They had worked together with Asus for it, and the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders is mostly a rebadged ROG Phone 5 with some tweaks here and there. It also came with a whopping USD1,499 (~RM6,623.33) price tag.
Unfortunately for some, it seems as though despite the huge fee to own one, users of the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders aren’t seeing the timely Android updates it promises. Reddit user u/hdoublearp posted on the Snapdragon subreddit, mentioning that his device has been stuck on the January security patch level even though we’re now halfway through the year, despite them having promised four years of regular security updates. On top of that, while there was an update for it as recently as March, it did not change the security patch level.
At launch, the smartphone will run stock Android 11 and Qualcomm will provide 4-years of regular security updates.
— Snapdragon (@Snapdragon) July 9, 2021
For what it’s worth, the Snapdragon community manager would respond to u/hdoublearp yesterday, and explained that the next security patch for the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders is already scheduled for the 20th of June. Further Android updates will be released every two to three months after that. However, while it’s certainly nice to know that your RM6,000 smartphone isn’t dead just yet, it’s a little puzzling to see monthly security updates coming every two to three months. Furthermore, there was no mention of when users can expect Android 12 on their device.
Overall, it’s not a good look for the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders or Qualcomm as a whole. The Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders was supposed to be Qualcomm’s way of showing off a ‘curated collection of Snapdragon experiences’ and show off the technology it had on hand. And while it was a pretty solid device as we found out when we got the chance to review it, it was just way too expensive to even consider, especially when you could just pick up the ROG Phone 5, the device the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders was based on.
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