The Samsung Galaxy S20 + has a retail price of $ 1,200. The Pixel 3a XL has a current retail price of just $ 420. Phones don’t have much in common, but there is one important thing: both will receive the same number of updates before reaching end of life. And one of these phones is approaching a year old.
You could say that the Galaxy S20 + is not working need platform updates because Samsung features are better and already in place. The person who claims it would be false, but on the surface, at least, it may seem true. The reality is that what a person thinks is not true. May be you don’t care about the new features that Android 11 or Android 12 will bring, but a price of $ 1,200 gives you the right to expect it.
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No one should expect a phone to be updated forever. It’s a great idea, but if you’ve ever tried using an older iPhone that has been updated to its fourth or fifth iOS version, you know it’s not always a great experience. I’m not suggesting that the S20 + see a full update to Android 14, but the cost implies that the phone is precious enough for Samsung to deliver the important things beyond Android 12 and add what it can without ruining performance. Kind of like a security update or the Pixel feature drops that we see more frequently.
No surprise here: Samsung’s flagship products in 2020 will only receive major updates up to Android 12
Much of the Android update mess is in the chip maker, and it usually means Qualcomm. A new Android platform means that chip makers have to provide new code for things to work the way they should. Qualcomm is known for its reluctance to do so (free of charge, anyway) and agreements between device manufacturers and Qualcomm must be made when the phone is designed, indicating the duration of Qualcomm support.
Google can sign these agreements for three years instead of two, and it lose money every time he makes a phone. Apple makes its own chips so that it can update phones beyond the point of use. Samsung has to … wait a minute. Samsung is also a chip maker, and its Exynos chips aren’t as good as comparable Qualcomm chips, but it could use them and provide years of updates if it wished.
Except that this is not possible, because Qualcomm also offers the modem and the complete RF solution and groups everything together so that it is prohibitive to use another brand of chip in many Western countries. Samsung can’t lose money on phone hardware like Google because it’s primarily a hardware manufacturer. Damn good at that. So let’s go back to square one.
$ 1,200 buys a lot of phone equipment but not as much software support.
Maybe carriers are the problem then. Samsung likes to pretend that it doesn’t have the power to move operators a little bit, and an operator wants you to upgrade your phone as often as possible. Operators make money by buying a phone and have an easy way to activate when they sell you a $ 1,200 phone that doesn’t work as well on another operator.
I say Samsung Is hold as much leverage as Google here and since we know the AT&T or Verizon Pixel 4 will get three platform updates, we can assume that the S20 + should too. Samsung is the world’s largest phone maker and makes the best phones. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the circular logic that brings me back to one thing: Samsung could offer three (or more) version updates, but for some reason that just isn’t the case.
So why doesn’t Samsung want to offer a longer support period than a budget phone limited to $ 350? Money is why.
Two very specific things would happen if Samsung did the unthinkable and even added a single year of support: people would buy Samsung phones less often, and the division that works on writing the Android version of Samsung would need to ‘a bigger budget to hire more people. Both cost a lot of money. Samsung is a for-profit business that exists only to make money like any other for-profit business. Spending more money is like a boogeyman holding a bucket filled with nightmares for businesses designed to generate profits.
It means that it is really our fault. Like many, I am looking at the Galaxy S20 range and wondering if I should buy one. I don’t need a new phone, but I salivate sexy new hardware that Samsung shows us every year like you. I am also determined never to spend $ 1,000 on a phone and that is part of the reason why phones have become disposable. Instead, I spent $ 900 (warning – it was company money) on a Pixel 4, which is no better.
Maybe buying a Pixel “a” series is the smart but boring choice.
I don’t know why we don’t all buy Pixel series phones or Nokia models that see quick updates for two years or even phones that will probably only see quarterly security updates but have the same killer material from companies like Redmi or Realme.
What I do know is that I keep looking at this page of the Galaxy S20 and I have to dissuade myself from clicking on the button, even if I know I deserve better.