Some of the cheapest Android phones are finally joining the Gemini era
Some of the cheapest Android phones are finally joining the Gemini era
Publish Date: 2026-06-04 06:20:00
Source Domain: www.androidcentral.com
What you need to know
- Gemini is officially replacing Assistant Go on Android Go devices, bringing Google’s modern AI experience to entry-level smartphones.
- Android Go phone users can now access Gemini natively through the Google app, eliminating the need for clunky browser-based workarounds.
- A long press of the Home or Power button launches Gemini.
Google’s aggressive push to get its newest AI on every screen imaginable just reached a massive new demographic. If you have a budget Android smartphone running Android Go in your hands, then it’s time to say your goodbyes to Assistant Go. The Gemini Go era is officially here, replacing the old voice assistant and bringing deeply conversational AI directly to the entry-level market.
Android Go phones — devices designed only with stripped-down software to perform well on severely limited hardware — relied on Assistant Go prior to this change. It worked pretty well, but it had its limitations.
As Google shifts its entire software ecosystem away from legacy voice tools, there’s just no sense in keeping an older assistant on life support. Gemini Go fills that need, designed from the ground up to run on handsets with as little as 2GB of RAM and to do so efficiently.
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No more janky web workarounds
You get a fully native AI experience right on your device. For a while, owners can’t even interact with Google’s modern generative models without resorting to unwieldy mobile web browser workarounds. With this rollout, that friction is gone. A simple long press of the Home button or the Power key now summons the new AI overlay.
To try it out, just head over to the Play Store and update the Google app, because Gemini Go is baked right into that core application, not a standalone download.
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