Sad news for users of the Samsung Galaxy S III international variant and the Samsung Galaxy S III Mini. Samsung officially confirmed that the latest Android update will not be available for the two year old flagship and its mini version.
Friends from SamMobile reached out to Samsung to clarify the confusion about the awaited update to the former flagship and here’s the response:
“In order to facilitate an effective upgrade on the Google platform, various hardware performances such as the memory (RAM, ROM, etc.), multi-tasking capabilities, and display must meet certain technical expectations. The Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions come equipped with 1GB RAM, which does not allow them to effectively support the platform upgrade. As a result of the Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions’ hardware limitation, they cannot effectively support the platform upgrade while continuing to provide the best consumer experience. Samsung has decided not to roll-out the KitKat upgrade to Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions, and the KitKat upgrade will be available to the Galaxy S3 LTE version as the device’s 2GB RAM is enough to support the platform upgrade.” – Samsung Mobile UK
After recent leaks that suggested the doom of the best-selling smartphone before, we finally got a confirmation. Yes, the culprit here is the 1GB of RAM but it’s KitKat, right? It should work well even on 512MB RAM phones. But this is Samsung and their TouchWiz skin adds a lot of features to the phone that might be the reason for this downfall.
The Samsung Galaxy S III went from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Android 4.3 Jelly Bean while the Galaxy S III Mini began its software journey with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and until 4.2 only.
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meaning lahat ng ibang samsung android devices na may 1gb na ram ay imposibleng makakuha ng official KitKat update :)) nice one Samsung..badtrip.
pareho lang din nman sa ibang brands di ba? di na sila nag-uupgrade kahit alam nating kaya pa ng specs ng phone. thats a marketing strategy. kung alam mong napagiiwanan na yung phone mo sa ICS, mapagiisip ka nang bumili ng bago kahit functional pa nman.
Planned obsolescence
what’s the best s3 mini custom rom?
Not really a big deal kung marunong ka mag flash ng custom Rom
hayup na yan! lahat naman ng samsung di pa ren updated. samsung mega gt19152 wala pa ren. Petsa na samsung?
ETA is June 2014 according to Sammobile.
its samsung’s or any other mobile phone manufacturers marketing strategy…. they wont provide update to the older models so consumers will be forced to buy their newer models in the market to get the new features… thats how business is!! BELIEVE THAT!!!
I wonder if Galaxy Note 10.1 will also get the update since I am now skeptical of Samsung’s service since they haven’t supplied updates since 4.1.2.
Try SlimKat… Fast and very stable… Or any other AOSP builds, alot of them are stable… Who needs the laggy touchwiz
Install custom ROM, problem solved. I got kitkat since January. SLIMROMS
Converted my Galaxy S4 into a Google Edition. I haven’t regretted it a bit!
In comparison, the Cherry Mobile Fusion Aura with its 512MB of RAM gets KitKat.
It’s a Touchwiz issue, as always. Luckily, we have cyanogenmod.
samsung no more…
That is why always get the same year’s Note version. 2014 saw the release of S5….better to get the Note 4 in October instead.
lazy..samsung lazy move.. I am honestly just waiting for the stable build of cm 11
CM 11 stable releases are replaced my monthly releases (currently: M6)
there are still some issues encountered in M6
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/93172-how-are-people-finding-cm11-m6/