The unlocked Moto Z that Motorola sells on their website, is now beginning to get their update to the Android 7.0 Nougat firmware. This update has been available for the Verizon variant for quite some time already. The Motorola team shed some light recently on why the update had taken so long to make it to the unlocked variant, and the gist of it is the fact that the unlocked Moto Z was put up for sale many months after the Verizon version, and thus have different software teams, and are not on the same software track. Which means users are getting updates at different times.
The update to Android 7.0 Nougat isn’t a big one on the Moto Z, but it does bring in quite a few new features for Moto Z users. For instance, the quick settings in the notification shade have been updated. They now take up a bit less space, and a few appear in the notification shade without expanding the quick settings area. Additionally, Doze is getting much better which should allow Moto Z owners to get even better battery life. Not to mention the countless under-the-hood changes that Motorola has made with the Moto Z, and that Google has done with Android. Perhaps the biggest feature of this update is the fact that it makes the Moto Z, Daydream-compatible. So you could pick up a Daydream View and check out some virtual reality content without buying a new smartphone. Which is pretty sweet. Unfortunately, the security patch that comes with Android 7.0 Nougat, is from November.
Those of you with the Moto Z, you can head on into the settings and find the update right now. Just head to Settings > About Phone > System Updates and then tap on check for update. It should be available for you. And as you might expect, the update is a fairly large one, so you may want to ensure that you are on WiFi before attempting to download it. That way you don’t end up going over your data limit, and you’ll likely download the update faster than you would otherwise.
