Stuff has spent time with several Tecno smartphones in recent years. The Africa-centric Chinese brand offers up decent hardware to users but its software has historically left much to be desired. That, happily, may be about to change.

Google and Tecno have announced a new three-year partnership that should see the smartphone brand wielding some better software in short order.

Time for some new Tecno

A key part of the partnership is the introduction of “an optimized user experience” for the company’s smartphone. That’s largely Google’s responsibility. Since the company is the de facto authority on Android (since Google owns the bloody thing), that makes sense.

The Chinese smartphone maker, for its part, will “be at the forefront of delivering latest Android updates, as well as power[ing] more seamless cross-device experiences”.

“Leveraging Google’s world-class expertise in software and innovation, coupled with [our] extensive experience in the mobile phone industry accumulated in emerging markets, we will provide local users with safe and reliable smart devices with first-class performance and excellent user experience,” said Tecno GM Jack Guo.

Hopefully, this translates into a less demanding operating system for the company’s smartphones, sooner rather than later. Generally speaking, the hardware is good — even in its lower-spec ranges — but the brand’s OS implementation is prone to bloatware and obnoxious attempts to out-Android Android.