Credit: Eric Zeman / Android Authority
Opinion post byHadlee Simons
Most major smartphone brands today tout long-term update pledges in some capacity, though they’re usually restricted to high-end devices. Samsung is undoubtedly the leader in this regard, offering four OS updates and five years of security patches for its phones, but other players aren’t too shabby either with three OS updates and four years of patches.
It’s a far cry from the early years of the modern smartphone era when even a single OS update wasn’t guaranteed. These pledges reflect people’s recent shift towards holding on to smartphones for longer than the standard two-year upgrade cycle. But a long update pledge doesn’t mean much if an integral hardware concern isn’t addressed first.