Samsung planning Android 1.6 update for Behold II -- but that's it

Remember the good ol' days when companies were honest to their customers? Aw, who are we kidding -- those days never actually existed, so it's good to see Samsung carrying on the time-honored tradition of playing the CYA game by belting out a bald-faced lie or two. So the Behold II for T-Mobile USA has been the subject of some serious buzz the past few days as buyers have grown weary of the lack of new builds, all while the Android world has passed them by with not one, not two, not three, but four major updates. Samsung Mobile finally broke the silence today on a forum -- good on them -- saying that there's a Donut update in the works featuring "Swype, an improved Media Player, updated core Android applications and improved Bluetooth capabilities."

That's all well and good, but Samsung goes on to say that "the Behold II is not upgradeable beyond Android 1.6" -- and we've got a serious problem with that wording. We know (and Samsung knows) damn well that they could upgrade the Behold II beyond Android 1.6, considering that the community has managed to shoehorn even Froyo onto prehistoric devices like the Dream; rather, Samsung chooses not to upgrade it beyond Android 1.6. That's a business decision that Samsung has to make, and far be it from us to try to push Sammy into continuing to sink cash into a phone that didn't sell very well -- but the least these guys could do is be honest, face the music, and tell us that's what's going on rather than insulting our collective intelligence and insisting that there's some cosmic force preventing Eclair or Froyo from loading onto a phone that was just released a few months ago. Seriously though, Sammy -- thanks for the Donut, we guess.

Update: We've now received Samsung's official response independently and have it for you after the break.