Earlier this year, the HMD-owned Nokia launched the Nokia 2 — a 99€ budget Android smartphone featuring only 1GB of RAM and running Android 7.1 Nougat. The handset was panned for its poor launch timing since despite being an ultra-low budget handset, it did not take advantage of Google’s Android Go program to possibly deliver better performance.

The lowly specs of the handset also meant that users were not really optimistic about HMD updating the handset to Oreo down the line. Proving everyone wrong though, HMD Global’s Chief Product Officer, Juho Sarvikas, has confirmed on Twitter that the Nokia 2 will indeed get the Android Oreo update. In fact, the handset will be updated to Android 8.1 Oreo directly where its performance would benefit from many of the Android Go optimisations introduced by Google. However, this does not mean that the Nokia 2 will become an Android Go device with the Oreo update. Instead, it would only benefit from the performance and memory management improvements that Google has introduced in Android 8.1 Oreo as a part of its Android Go program.

Hi! It will receive Android Oreo. 1GB RAM devices will be supported on 8.1 release where many of the Android Go memory management improvements will be integrated. Nokia 2 performance will only get better over time!

— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) December 28, 2017

The 99€ Nokia 2 comes with a 720p display, Snapdragon 212 processor, and 1GB RAM. For such specifications, the handset still manages to perform pretty decently, though lags and stutters are a common occurrence on the device in daily use. With the Android 8.1 Oreo update and the optimisations that Google has made to the OS for devices with 1GB of RAM, the Nokia 2 should see a notable improvement in its performance.

While Sarvikas has confirmed that the Nokia 2 will get the Oreo update, there was no word from him as to when the update would make its way to the handset. Given that other mid-range handsets in Nokia’s lineup have still not received the Oreo update, the Nokia 2’s Oreo update is still at least a couple of months away.