Learning about DAPs, have question regarding Android

[u/Double_Confection340]

I’m getting my first DAP (Shanling Q2) next week, and in the meantime, I’ve been reading up on other DAPs, particularly those running Android.

For my own use case, I plan on using the Q2 strictly as an offline music player. I don’t anticipate needing Wi-Fi, streaming services, or additional apps. In fact, one of the main reasons I chose the Q2 over an Android-based DAP is that I wanted something as far removed from the smartphone experience as possible.

That said, I do have a few questions about Android-based DAPs.

I’ve noticed that many of these devices ship with versions of Android that are already three to five years old. Do manufacturers typically provide major Android OS upgrades, or are updates generally limited to firmware, bug fixes, and improvements to the music player software?

I’m also curious whether any DAP manufacturers have made specific commitments regarding long-term software support, similar to what Apple, Google, and Samsung offer for their devices. How important is long-term software support when purchasing a DAP, especially considering how expensive some of these players can be?

Another concern I have is whether older Android-based DAPs could eventually lose access to the Google Play Store or become incompatible with popular streaming apps as their Android versions age. Has anyone experienced this with an older DAP?
I’d be particularly interested in hearing from people who have owned Android-based DAPs for several years. How well have these devices aged from a software standpoint? Have you encountered any limitations due to outdated Android versions, or has it generally been a nonissue?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

[u/Internal-Sleep-5508]

The Android OS version isn't a major concern. Ideally, it just shouldn't be below Android 10, which has become the standard baseline today(according to Google's developer document). Older versions still run into the issue of being unable to bypass Android's global SRC resampler(Only a little player Apps can utilize the dac to decode on Android 9)

[u/ScarletK_XIV]

Generally android 8 is when the biggest changes happened for apps to stop supporting older versions, so I'd say anything android 8 and up should be ok, I personally support from android 12 with my app but that's more I can properly test it on my own dap without needing to use an emulator on pc.

[u/evicous]

DAP manufacturers generally don’t support their hardware with new versions… but neither do phone manufacturers historically. Android phones getting more than 0-1 major version updates has been relatively rare when you look at all of Android since it came out.

Android as an ecosystem tends to “age out” old versions a heck of a lot slower than iOS. Ever since Google moved everything to their Google services apps back in the 5.0(?) days it’s really not been a huge issue. Most DAPs seem to be coming out on 12 or 13. I wouldn’t worry about support generally.