It’s a fact that Google will release the Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet early next week, carrying along the revised Jelly Bean, which brings up the operating system’s version number to Android 4.2. It’s also logical to expect that Google will roll out the new Jelly Bean for some of its older Nexus devices – possibly even all of the devices that currently run Android 4.1 – within a short period of time.

Even setting aside possible carrier-side delays in the Android update process, we still don’t have a clear picture of how the manufacturers will carry out their updates to Android 4.2. Given that many current high-end phones still run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, it could still take a while for some of these firms to push out their updates to Google’s latest and greatest.

For now, the most prominent rumors suggest that Samsung could start rolling out its Android 4.2 update for the Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3 in the first quarter of next year. Given its newfound alacrity in working on and releasing Android updates, there’s some cause for guarded optimism about the South Korean firm’s chances of following through on these reports.

However, most other manufacturers are still stuck in the process of upgrading to Android 4.1.

HTC has just rolled out its Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for the international One X and One S, but this software package hasn’t made its way to the United States as of yet.

LG could very well roll out Android 4.1 to its Optimus G – which ships with Ice Cream Sandwich – this year, but there hasn’t been any news about a bump to Android 4.2 for its latest flagship, despite it sharing internals with the Nexus 4. Finally, Motorola has been rumored to be planning a quick Android 4.1 update for the Droid RAZR M and the rest of its new Droids, but similarly no news of Android 4.2.

As such, the earliest these manufacturers could roll out an update to the refreshed Jelly Bean could be in the first quarter of next year, but for the more unfortunate devices, it could still take quite a bit longer. Hopefully, we’ll get to see the fruits of Google’s efforts to allow device makers to roll out these software updates quicker.