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The year was 2009. Microsoft was getting ready to launch a dramatically new version of its smartphone operating system which would require phones with some pretty powerful hardware. The HTC HD2 fit the bill, but it actually shipped with Windows Mobile 6.5. Many folks figured it would just be a matter of time before it received a Windows Phone 7 update… but it never did.

While Microsoft and HTC largely dropped support for this 4.3 inch phone with a 1 GHz Qualcomm processor, independent developers never did — and they’ve ported pretty much every version of Android to run on the device.

Now you can even run Android 4.4 KitKat on the aging phone. It’s still just a test version at this point, and there’s no guarantee everything’ll work — but the phone that won’t die continues to… not die.

Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.

  • HTC HD2 gets an unofficial Android 4.4 build with SlimKat
    It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that KitKat can run on this aging phone — Andorid 4.4 is designed to require less memory and run well on slower processors than the last few versions of Android. But at a time when smartphones are often considered out of date a year or two after launch, it’s nice to see this 4-year-old model keep on ticking. . [xda-developers]
  • Linux Mint 16 “Petra” now available
    I’ve been test-driving a release candidate of Linux Mint 16 on a notebook for a few weeks, and it’s probably one of the easiest-to-use Linux distributions I’ve ever tried… when everything works. I haven’t been able to get Crashplan to run my cloud backups, and I haven’t had much luck installing the unofficial Netflix app for Linux. Everything else I’ve tried works great though. [Linux Mint]
  • Meizu MX4G smartphone has a 5.5 inch, 2560 x 1536px, 542ppi display
    Yet another phone from a Chinese company that’s decided 1080p isn’t good enough for a device small enough to fit in your pocket. [TechBlog.gr]
  • HP Slate 8 Pro goes on sale
    HP’s 8 inch tablet with a Tegra 4 CPU is now available for $330. It also has a 1600 x 1200 pixel display, giving it a few more pixels than an iPad mini with Retina. [Best Buy]
  • Nitpicking Android 4.4 KitKat
    The folks at Android Police have made a habit of pointing out flaws in each version of Google Android, and KitKat hasn’t escaped the scrutiny. For instance, the recent apps switcher won’t show you the settings menu you were just looking at. The icons and the clock in the status bar aren’t the same height. Then there are the things we’d like to see, but which aren’t technically broken — like a restart option from the power menu. [Android Police]

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3 replies on “Lilbits (12-02-2013): Android 4.4 for the HTC HD2 (phone that won’t die)”

  1. I wish nokia was smart enough to deploy an android phone. They were the best handphone manufacturer last time. But too bad their CEOs were so damn fuckin’ stupid moron and they followed the dark force of microsucks winblows mobile.

    Btw I missed those wonderful time when my handphone battery can last longer.

    Now every smartphone cannot last 1 day. My nokia 5110 last time can last for 1 week LOL.

  2. Why can’t they just start making these again? Just keep everything the same and sell it very cheap (sub-$50) on prepaid in those little blister packs on walmart shelves or as a developer phone or something has to beat all the crap out there now. If the Lumia was a little less restricted in that price point then I’d have bought that.

  3. I always felt my WinMo Samsung Omnia 2 could have run Android too.

Comments are closed.