First comes the developer preview, then the public beta, and finally Snow Cones for everyone.
Android 12 is on the way. On February 18, we learned that the first Android 12 Developer Preview had gone live, giving devs access to a preview build of the new operating system, codename Snow Cone. Based on our Android 12 Developer Preview hands-on, the UI is largely unchanged, but there are some behind-the-scenes upgrades that could make your Android handheld that much better.
This build isn’t stable and shouldn’t be installed on your main Android phone, but this new preview means Google is sticking to its usual annual schedule. So depending on which of the best Android phones you own, you could install Android 12 as soon as this summer.
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While many Android users are still asking when they will get Android 11, we’ve started to see stable updates to 11 for many key manufacturers. Using these schedules as a guide, we can extrapolate when we expect certain phones to get access to their specific version of Android 12 in 2021 or 2022.
We don’t have firm updates yet, or even an official Android 12 release date. But for those eager beavers asking, “When will my phone get Android 12?”, here is everything we know.
Jump to:
- Google Pixel
- Samsung
- OnePlus
- LG
- Xiaomi
- Motorola
- Nokia
When will my Google Pixel phone get Android 12?
Google Pixel owners will get access to Android 12 on the day it launches. We don’t have an official date for that yet, but the released Android developer timeline gives us a pretty good idea.
After the developer previews from February through April, you should be able to download the Android 12 public beta in May 2021. New betas will come out until August, which is when Android 12 ideally will achieve “platform stability”. From there, the official release of Android 12 should come relatively quickly; if it matches Android 11’s timetable, you’ll likely see it in early September on the following Pixel phones:
- Pixel 3
- Pixel 3 XL
- Pixel 3a
- Pixel 3a XL
- Pixel 4
- Pixel 4 XL
- Pixel 4a
- Pixel 4a 5G
- Pixel 5
When will my Samsung phone get Android 12?
We know that Samsung has promised three years of updates for its most recent list of phones, so we have a pretty definitive list of which Samsung phones will get its proprietary version Android 12 (or won’t). As for when the update will arrive, look at the timetable that Samsung One UI 3.0 appeared on phones. After Android 11’s September launch, Samsung began rolling out its first updates to the Galaxy S20s in December 2020, then its Note 20s, S10s, and other major phones in January 2021.
If Android 12 (or One UI 4.0, hypothetically) arrives this September, you could see the new OS on your phone within three to four months; however, the older your phone or tablet is, the longer the update will take to arrive.
Speculation aside, here is a confirmed list of the Samsung phones we know of that will receive an Android 12 update:
- Galaxy S21
- Galaxy S21+
- Galaxy S21 Ultra
- Galaxy S20
- Galaxy S20+
- Galaxy S20 Ultra
- Galaxy S20 FE
- Galaxy S10
- Galaxy S10+
- Galaxy S10 Lite
- Galaxy S10e
- Galaxy Note 20
- Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
- Galaxy Note 10
- Galaxy Note 10 Lite
- Galaxy Note10+
- Galaxy Z Fold 2
- Galaxy Z Flip
- Galaxy Fold
- Galaxy A71
- Galaxy A51
- Galaxy A90 5G
- Galaxy Tab S7
- Galaxy Tab S7+
- Galaxy Tab S6
- Galaxy Tab S6 Lite
When will my OnePlus phone get Android 12?
OnePlus is one of our favorite Android phone brands, but it’s safe to say that the company has had some trouble getting the OxygenOS 11 operating system onto the majority of its phone lineup. It arrived on the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro just a month after Google’s release, but has yet to appear on the OnePlus 7, 6, or Nord phones — even though the 7 lineup was originally meant to get it in December 2020.
The delays make it hard to predict how OnePlus will handle the OxygenOS 12 update to the OnePlus 9 and its older siblings. Yet you’re unlikely to see an update sooner than October 2021, or at least a couple of months later for the OnePlus 8. Whenever it comes, Android 12 (or OxygenOS 12) is only expected to appear on these phones:
- OnePlus 9
- OnePlus 9 Pro
- OnePlus 9 Lite
- OnePlus 8 Pro
- OnePlus 8
- OnePlus Nord
- OnePlus 7T Pro
- OnePlus 7T
- OnePlus 7
When will my LG phone get Android 12?
Any discussion about the future of LG’s phones is fraught, given that the company potentially plans to sell its smartphone business and may already have a buyer. It will likely keep updating its recently released phones, but the speed of the updates may change if another company takes over.
At present, only the LG Velvet has started receiving a stable Android 11 update, while its other phones are still stuck on Android 10 with no timetable for updates. All of this to say, we can’t even begin to say when and can’t even be 100% sure which LG phones will get Android 12. We know of three currently-released phones almost certain to get Android 12 — based on their release dates and the fact that LG typically supports its phones for two years — plus the new LG Rollable once it launches. These LG phones should get Android 12:
- LG Rollable
- LG Wing
- LG V60 ThinQ 5G
- LG Velvet
When will my Xiaomi phone get Android 12?
When it comes to Xiaomi and MIUI 12, the company has begun to update some of its phones to MIUI 12 Android 11, with a long list of updates still to come. We don’t know yet which phones will progress to Android 12, presumably on MIUI 12.5 or 13, but most Xiaomi, Redmi, and POCO-brand phones tend to get two Android OS updates per life cycle.
Keeping that in mind, below is our list of which Xiaomi phones will (most likely) get Android 12. Based on the fact that the Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro phones got Android 11 with MIUI 12 in early February 2021, it’s likely that Android 12 won’t make it to these phones until Q1 2022 at the earliest:
- Xiaomi Mi 10
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Youth Edition
- Xiaomi Mi 10T
- Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro
- Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
- Xiaomi Mi 11
- Xiaomi Mi Note 10
- Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro
- Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
- Redmi 9
- Redmi 9A
- Redmi 9C
- Redmi 9T
- Redmi K30
- Redmi K30 Pro
- POCO F2 Pro
- POCO X2
- POCO M2
- POCO M2 Pro
- POCO X3
- POCO C3
- POCO M3
When will my Motorola phone get Android 12?
Motorola really doesn’t like updating its phones. There’s no other way to put it. When it announced its list of the Motorola phones that’ll get Android 11, it also qualified the list by saying that the vast majority of them won’t get an Android 12 update. That includes new phones like the Motorola One 5G Ace, Moto G Stylus (2021), and Moto G Power (2021), which launched this January with Android 10 installed.
Which Motorola phones will get Android 12? So far, the company has only committed to updating two phones to that OS: the Motorola Edge+ and Motorola RAZR. Other Motorola phones may get Android 12 eventually, but there’s no guarantee. We’ll have to wait until much later in 2021 to find out.
When will my Nokia phone get Android 12?
Nokia is yet another phone company that’s had some problems with updates. Despite being the only manufacturer still making Android One phones, Nokia has failed to live up to the promise of simultaneous OS releases with Pixel phones. It released an Android 11 update schedule promising a Q4 Android 11 rollout for several phones, but Nokia only just added Android 11 to the Nokia 8.3 5G in early February, while the rest remain stuck on Android 10.
If Nokia is stuck playing catch-up on 11 throughout 2021, we doubt it’ll suddenly become totally punctual for delivering Android 12. That takes away one of the main incentives for buying a Nokia phone, which is a disappointing situation. Whatever happens, these are the only phones that launched with Android 10, and as such are guaranteed to get an Android 12 update:
- Nokia 8.3 5G
- Nokia 5.3
- Nokia 1.3
- Nokia 2.4
- Nokia 3.4
