Thursday, February 6, 2014

Rumor suggests Samsung Galaxy S III, Note II and other older devices will get official KitKat

Samsung hasn’t always been the fastest when it comes Android updates, but besides Google and its Nexus devices, I think that Samsung is the best overall. Not only are its updates released in a somewhat timely manner, it supports its older phones for quite a while. This is important because it reassures customers that their device won’t be tossed aside in less than a year. For example, the Galaxy S II was supported for nearly two years and was taken from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean.

HTC may be beating Samsung to releasing KitKat in the US, but HTC also recently dumped support for the HTC One X and HTC One X+. Released in early 2012 and late 2012, respectively, HTC has deemed that those devices are not worthy of anything more than Android 4.2, despite them being just one generation old. Meanwhile, Samsung has updated its 2012 models to Android 4.3, and if a new rumor is correct, they may soon get Android 4.4 as well.

The latest rumor states that a bunch of older Samsung devices will receive the latest version of Android, despite the fact that they’re nearly two years old. There are even some some lower-end devices are on the list:

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 SGH-i317
Samsung Galaxy S3 SGH-i747
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 SM-t217a
Samsung Galaxy S4 SGH-i337
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active SGH-i537
Samsung Galaxy Mega SGH-i527
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom SM-c105a
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 SM-N900a
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 SGH-i467
Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini SM-g730a

If this rumor ends up being true, it’ll just add support to my opinion that Samsung is the best Android manufacturer when it comes to providing software updates. If phones are supported properly for two years, it means that security holes and bugs are far more likely to get fixed and new features will be added. Unfortunately, this also means that Samsung ends up being a bit slower at updating its current flagships, but I think it’s worth the tradeoff. Don’t you?