@SamsungUK has announced via Twitter that their former flagships, the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 (both from 2012) will not be updated to android Lollipop.
This is not unexpected, but it is disappointing.
Only a year ago, Samsung announced that they would in fact be providing an update to the Samsung Galaxy S3 to bring it in line with Google’s most up to date version of the popular operating system.
It’s only a few short months ago that I still had my Galaxy S3 sitting in a desk drawer, before I decided to sell it online. I did consider holding onto it, with an update to Lollipop pending, but I was happy with my Motorola Moto G – which has far superior battery life and is already up to date.
From a bargain hunter’s point of view, the Galaxy S3 is still a great phone three years since it represented the pinnacle of Samsung’s smartphone line-up. It is still relatively up to date and packs some good hardware. Three years down the line and it is still much more future-proof than the Galaxy S2 was even two years after its launch.
Is a second hand Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Note 2 still a good buy? The S3 definitely still is: You could pick a decent one up second hand for about £100 (some retailers are still selling the Galaxy S3 Mini which is priced maybe £20 cheaper, if you shop around).
The S3 features a removable/replaceable battery, which means that even in the unlikely event that the second hand handset that you buy still packs the original battery, you can buy a brand new replacement and get the best battery life from your phone.
The Galaxy Note 2 is not quite so good a deal second hand – We are now in the age of the phablet, and there is now a lot of choice around at varying price points. You could get something better for the price.
It’s annoying that handset manufacturers drop support for older devices like this. It’s obvious that they do this to encourage customers to spend money on the latest tech, but owning a slightly older device shouldn’t leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth when manufacturers try to force you to buy the latest flagship, especially as the Galaxy S3 was still being sold by some retailers last year.
Ok, there are plenty of handsets still running Android KitKat, and there are loads of retailers still selling KitKat devices which are very unlikely to ever be updated. This is particularly problematic for people who buy budget Android devices: You can pretty much guarantee that these will never see an update, especially if they are locked to a network, as the network’s own software might conflict with a “new” operating system.
Where Samsung have gone wrong (and they are not alone in this), is that they are failing to provide continued support for their ex-flagship devices. If you buy a £50 phone, you don’t mind so much if you get a good couple of years’ use from it. It will still probably work and look ok, if you have taken care of it, but for £50 it’s acceptable to think that you will be stranded with an older version of the operating system.
When you buy a flagship device, you expect the best quality from the handset – And that should also include the best support from the manufacturer.
It is not ok for manufacturers to say that they will not support their older flagship devices. Yes, there has to be a cut-off at some point, and three years in the tech world is a long time, but when manufacturers add features and chipsets that can handle updates, they should continue to provide this support, especially when customers may have bought these devices – brand new – as little as one year ago.
I’m not saying that every manufacturer or handset should be updated for as long as possible, but flagship devices now cost upwards of £600, and the hardware that they contain has features that is yet to be realised within the market – These handsets are definitely not redundant after two years.
Manufacturers shouldn’t say that this will hurt sales – There are enough mugs in the UK who want the very latest flagship, even though they have owned their flagship device for less than a year and are willing to shell out hundreds to buy out their own contract.
In some ways, it’s the fault of the network operators – They sell the latest devices and accept pre-orders for phones well before they are available. Many customers want something that they can’t have, yet almost all handset contracts are now 24 months. Anyone on one of these contracts will know what it feels like to want something different after a year. Your flagship device becomes “old” after the next flagship is released, and it becomes “very old” after the next flagship device hits the shelves.
- These ex-flagship devices should not become “old”! They still have better technology than most other handsets available, and the manufacturers should be willing to provide ongoing support.
This is mainly an Android problem.
iOS is very much hardware-dependent, and a five year old iPhone is pretty outdated (and most likely worn out anyway).
Nokia/Microsoft almost went down this route with Windows Phone 7: These phones reached v7.8, but were not to be upgraded to WP8 – Now all Windows Phone 8.1 devices are to receive an update to Windows 10, which is excellent news for customers.
Google keep on releasing yet another version of Android. From a security point of view, you really do need the latest version to be as secure as you can be on your mobile device. If Google just let things be for a while, the world would have enough time to catch up and we wouldn’t get this fragmentation and manufacturers wouldn’t feel the need to abandon older flagship devices.
What really irks me is the way in which manufacturers announce their latest flagship handsets, and state that they will run the latest version of the OS.
When these flagship devices are eventually made available, the OS is already out of date, but some promise that an update will be rolled out eventually. In many cases, this is up to a year later – when yet another version of the OS is already on the horizon.
This is one of the main reasons that I have largely given up on the Android operating system. I can’t stand the fragmentation and the false hope that my device will ever receive an update.
If I pay a lot of money for something that is supposed to represent great quality, I want it to last, and that includes the software.
