New list of Samsung handsets that are upgradeable to Android KitKat excludes the Galaxy S3 GT-I9300

3. Doakie (Posts: 2227; Member since: 06 May 2009)

It's a phone that was released 24 months ago. I've had three phones since my Galaxy S 3, it's time for them to stop support on it. They promised 24 months of updates. Its 24 months after launch. Done.

5. draconic1991 (Posts: 197; Member since: 27 Apr 2012)

Then they shudnt have released it for other variants as well if they wanted to maintain the 18 mnth cycle...

10. sgodsell (Posts: 4735; Member since: 16 Mar 2013)

One major thing people don't seem to have a clue in regards in storage. All phones have some type of flash storage (eMMC, ...). Then after a period of time the storage and speed will degrade. Even if you introduce things like trim in Android 4.3+. Ultimately its just better to upgrade the device, or don't store things on your phones, or store things on external storage (micro SD, cloud) ;-)
I can't wait for project Ara to take off.

9. NokiaFTW (Posts: 2072; Member since: 24 Oct 2012)

Samsung support their flagships for at least 24 months. However, since the release of the S3, there have been four updates to the Android OS. Samsung have provided updates for 4.1 & then a direct update to 4.3. Android KitKat (4.4) was also released during this 24 month period. Hence, Samsung should also provide the KitKat update for the S3. Updating just the LTE variants of the phone shows Samsung doesn't have confidence in its UI to holdup on 1GB of RAM. Android KitKat has been optimized for devices with even 512MB of RAM. So there's no reason that the international S3 with 1GB of RAM can't handle KitKat. This is not great support from Samsung you know.

13. TheGenius (Posts: 339; Member since: 06 Mar 2014)

Are you here just to speak garbage ot did you actually read the article.?

It clearly states that update for int s3 was cancelled due to some unsolved problem.!

Now if they cant fix it .. then there's no point in releasing an update as it will degrade the performance of the device.

16. sgodsell (Posts: 4735; Member since: 16 Mar 2013)

I just heard from a friend that there are some GPU issues with the older Mali-400MP4 GPU. KitKat is more demanding on the GPU, since they updated the requirements to KitKat. It requires Opengl ES 2.0 now. I know that GPU is suppose to handle 2.0, but I heard there is something wrong with Samsung's Exynos version of the Mali-400MP4 GPU. Its not fully up to the 2.0 spec. That's what I was told today.

26. yowanvista (Posts: 341; Member since: 20 Sep 2011)

There is no such 'older Mali-400MP4', they're similar any minor revision (if any) share the same design basis. The IP design or core might undergo several changes at the silicon level (eg leakage fixes or minor thermal desigb improvements) but the GPU as seen by the software is identical. KiKat GPU usage is neither higher nor does it rely on any newer specific OpenGL ES extensions (Mali-400 already supports ES2.0). The problem here is rather centered around this particular Exynos SoC and its rather troublesome binaries/blobs or sources. Keep in mind that it was originally targeted at ICS when first released so it takes quite some time to implement new changes introduced by newer Android versions in this specific Exynos kernel. The latter has never been upgraded and Samsung just kept backporting patches from newer kernel versions (3.4) into theirs for each major Android firmware update (notice that all S3 kernel versions are 3.0.18 instead of 3.4.x). Samsung just kept backporting things into their half baked kernel, problems were already apparent by the 4.3 upgrade which had issues related to the power management IC for instance. It was inevitable that they'd run into issues down that road and all seems to indicate that this has just started to happen, at least with either their messed up sources or PDK.

28. nlbates66 (Posts: 328; Member since: 15 Aug 2012)

the Galaxy S III i9305 has the same GPU as the i9300, and it's getting the update, so either that's untrue or the LTE version (i9305) has a revised chip.

14. ThePython (Posts: 901; Member since: 08 May 2013)

It's a phone released two years ago that sold almost as much as the following two flagships combined. It's a matter of respect.

27. VZWuser76 (Posts: 4746; Member since: 04 Mar 2010)

While we are at 24 months from the S3's release, 4.4 KitKat was released end of October last year, that's 7 months ago. This was the phone that put them on Apple's level as far as phone sales go. As I understand it the only one of the S3 variants not getting the update is the model with Samsung's own processor. I could understand when they didn't upgrade the Galaxy Nexus since Ti pulled out of the mobile industry and there were no drivers for it. But this is their own processor.

KitKat was released when the S3 was 17 months into it's life cycle, they should at least honor their commitment, and not drag their feet and say now that they can't do it. Just yesterday the RAZR Maxx HD was announced to start a soak test for 4.4.2. If they can do it I can't imagine why Samsung with all their resources couldn't do it as well.

Many are saying it's just business and that's true. But why stop there? Why not stop providing updates and force everyone to upgrade their phone every time a new major OS update comes out? It'd be a lot more profitable for the OEMS that's for sure.

17. RORYREVOLUTION (Posts: 3117; Member since: 12 Jan 2010)

Please tell me how great of a job HTC, LG, and Sony are all supporting their devices that are over 24 months old.

19. panjgoori (Posts: 22; Member since: 17 Nov 2012)

yes. atleast they are much much better than Sony. Once sony sold their phone to the people they forgets about them as they never sold any phone.

25. InspectorGadget80 (unregistered)

with a billion served world wide they will UPDATE the OS.

34. kabhijeet.16 (Posts: 813; Member since: 05 Dec 2012)

OMG.. Ppl making big fuss about nothing (so many comments here for nothing) N/a means information is Not Available. ppl must wait for Samsung's official announcement that it wont be available.
This pic is only showing that information is Not AVailable...

39. samsungfan21 (Posts: 1; Member since: 12 Nov 2014)

they forgot about samsung galaxy s2 why????
take an example the Samsung galaxy ace 4 is only 1.0 ghz dual-core and it has 4.4.2 and samsung galaxy s2 has 1.2 dual core and it has 4.1.2

4. draconic1991 (Posts: 197; Member since: 27 Apr 2012)

please explain this to me.....in the update to 4.3 the os itself uses some amount of ram and some is used by the skin....now comes kitkat which uses less ram than 4.3....so what kind of stupid things were they planning to put in the already crappy touch wiz that overall consumption of kitkat increases???

23. 1ceTr0n (Posts: 549; Member since: 20 May 2012)

LTE version uses touchwiz also, so your point is invalid. Its the LTE radio

32. RebelwithoutaClue (Posts: 3503; Member since: 05 Apr 2013)

But the LTE (i9305) version has 2GB as well, the I9300 only 1GB.

12. NokiaFTW (Posts: 2072; Member since: 24 Oct 2012)

This is a business model dude. Sammy want the S3 owners to dump their phone and bump up to the newer S5. The only way they can do that is to stop supporting the older phone.

31. Berzerk000 (Posts: 4275; Member since: 26 Jun 2011)

Just because it's similar doesn't mean it's getting the update, especially since it's only available on a single carrier.

Galaxy S2 (Snapdragon S3, 1 GB RAM, 480x800 display, available around the world) - updated to 4.1

Galaxy S Blaze (Snapdragon S3, 1 GB RAM, 480x800 display, only available on T-Mobile) - left at 4.0.

35. PapaSmurf (Posts: 10457; Member since: 14 May 2012)

Samsung announced it was getting KitKat back in November soooo....