While Android 8.1 Oreo (Go edition) smartphones are yet to reach the market, Google Assistant Go has now debuted, delivering Google's virtual assistant in a lightweight version. The Google Assistant Go app is available for download on Google Play. The app presently supports a bunch of international languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai. It may get Hindi support as well over time - considering the recent developments around Google Assistant. The new app notably comes months after Google released apps such as Files Go, Gboard Go, Google Go, Maps Go, and YouTube Go.
The Google Assistant Go app offers most of the features that are available through the standard Google Assistant integration. This means the app allows you to make quick phone calls, send text messages, play music, navigate places, preview your upcoming events, weather information, and ask general questions. To begin with Google Assistant Go, you just need to touch and hold the Home button or tap the microphone icon on Google Search bar.
A support page by Google states that the Google Assistant Go app has some differences over the original Google Assistant version since the app is made to use less storage and data. The list of features that aren't available on the lightweight Google Assistant includes reminders, controls for smart home devices, Actions on Google, and Device Actions. Also, the app is not likely to support OK Google or Hey Google hands-free activation.
The Google Play listing shows that the Google Assistant Go app is compatible with devices running Android 8.0 Oreo and later. However, at the time of filing this story, we weren't able to install the app on any of the Android Oreo devices available at our premises. It seems that the app is initially available only for the hardware running Android Oreo (Go Edition) devices that haven't been launched as of now.
Earlier this week, MediaTek announced its partnership with Reliance Jio to bring an Android Oreo (Go Edition) smartphone. Companies such as Micromax and HMD Global are also in the headlines for building their own Android Oreo (Go edition) devices that are likely to come with inferior specifications than the traditional entry-level Android handsets but offer the newest Android experience.