Study Shows Nokia Better Than Samsung at Android Updates

[jiyeon]

Source: The Verge

 

A study done by Counterpoint Research has conveyed that out of the top 10 manufacturers, Nokia is the fastest, topping Samsung for the number 1 spot, achieving 96% of devices running Android 9 Pie.

 

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Counterpoint Research found that 96 percent of Nokia phones sold since the release of Android Pie have either shipped with or been updated to the latest iteration of Android. Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei each have figures in the 80-plus percent range, but no other company that Counterpoint studied was even close. Lenovo and Oppo were below 50 percent, while LG, Vivo, and others were below 20 percent.

 

 

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Slow updates have been a perpetual problem for Android smartphones. Even flagship phones aren’t guaranteed to be running the latest version of Android out of the box, and updates to new versions tend to arrive slowly, if at all. Unlike iPhones, which tend to get support from Apple for four or more years, even the most expensive Android phones tend to have support fall off after two or three years. Google’s promise of three years of support for Pixel phones makes it a standout.

 

I don't think it's a very high bar to clear since a good majority of the manufacturers tend to update their arsenal of lineups pretty darn late. I remember owning a Samsung Galaxy S8 - which I have now handed down to my mother - and it took easily 8 months to get to Android 9 from when Android 9 was released to the public. If Samsung is rated at the number 2 spot for most supported devices with Android Pie running, I wonder how long the others take...

 

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Still, as Counterpoint shows, the situation is still bad for most phone manufacturers. Looking at their portfolio has a whole, updates take even longer, with only three phone brands — Nokia, Lenovo, and Xiaomi — having half of their portfolio running the latest version of Android a year after its release, according to the study.

 

It's such a shame that these phone manufacturers don't support their older devices for the newer software, which prevents people who want to experience the new and improved, shiny Android version just because their choseh handset won't support it, or will, and get the update 9 months into the future.

Software updates complaints aside, praise to Nokia though, I haven't heard that name in a while in the smartphone game, so it's nice that they're still top of the class in software support, again not that it was a high bar to clear in the first place with Samsung taking eons to update their recent and supported phone models...

[Arika]

now let's see the security update stats. i feel like most manufactures only provide proper security updates for about 2 years, then if you get one it's because of some crucial vulnerability that is found. 

 

This is something that Apple does better.

[Zodiark1593]

Welcome to the status quo of the past ten years, pretty much Android's entire life. If updates over the long term are crucial, and you don't want to/can't install a cusrom ROM, Android really doesn't exist.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

now let's see the security update stats. i feel like most manufactures only provide proper security updates for about 2 years, then if you get one it's because of some crucial vulnerability that is found. 

 

This is something that Apple does better.

Google used to do that pretty well with the nexus line, too bad it turned into yet another pointlessly expensive and underwhelming brand (even before it was renamed to pixel).

 

Sideload it is I guess, or I could just buy another two phones with the difference in price I'd have to pay for an iPhone.

[m777y]

fail understand

 

my bad

[Arika]

21 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Sideload it is I guess

i did try lineage OS on one of my devices, but it absolutely killed battery life, since it doesn't go into a sleep state, it just seems to turn the screen off.

[XenosTech]

50 minutes ago, sowon said:

I don't think it's a very high bar to clear since a good majority of the manufacturers tend to update their arsenal of lineups pretty darn late. I remember owning a Samsung Galaxy S8 - which I have now handed down to my mother - and it took easily 8 months to get to Android 9 from when Android 9 was released to the public. If Samsung is rated at the number 2 spot for most supported devices with Android Pie running, I wonder how long the others take...

Took LG about a year to put out the nougat update for the V10 and by the time that came out it was time for Oreo and the V30 so I just bought a pixel 2 XL

[captain_to_fire]

Quote

Counterpoint Research found that 96 percent of Nokia phones sold since the release of Android Pie have either shipped with or been updated to the latest iteration of Android

Because Nokia phones (technically HMD Global) uses vanilla Android for their phones and it’s part of the Android One program. https://www.android.com/one/

 

[dizmo]

To be fair, Samsung puts out considerably more handsets than Nokia does. I'd say that 7% differential really isn't that bad.

[Rainbow Dash]

Sony is soo bad that they don't even get their name on the chart.

[Princess Luna]

Laughs in Nokia 8 :3

 

Best smartphone purchase I could have made back in the day~

[The King of the Undead]

but can I run over it still?

[D13H4RD]

You gotta hand it to Samsung though

 

They may be slower than many at pushing Pie, but a lot of their handsets do actually get it.

[Blademaster91]

At least Samsung aren't doing what LG is, pushing new versions of a phone with the latest OS and leaving the older model with only critical patches, a real shame imo as their phones have some pretty nice features.

[TetraSky]

Fair enough, my Nokia phone gets security updates all the time.... Just too bad it's stuck on Android 7 because while they've been testing 8.1 in beta for months, they don't seems to be in any hurry to release it proper... And even if I join the beta, you can't actually download the firmware, they "send it to you" OTA.... Which they totally never do.

[Salv8 (sam)]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

i did try lineage OS on one of my devices, but it absolutely killed battery life, since it doesn't go into a sleep state, it just seems to turn the screen off.

the nexus lineage OS port is terrible!

you are better off with something like AOSPEXTENDED (https://www.aospextended.com/) as they just add crap to android and leave most of it alone unlike lineage where they modify and change parts of the OS that end up not working for most devices since it either has to be disabled, removed, or edited.

and since each variation is made by a different person, updates aren't guaranteed...

they aren't that great of an option unless the device you are using was VERY popular and still have a large user base even though it's discontinued...

[Brooksie359]

Honestly I have never cared what android version I am on because I have never been able to tell the difference. I also hate getting updates on my phone and always tell it to update later. 

[williamcll]

I'm curious to see OnePlus and Google's performance on this.

[realpetertdm]

3 hours ago, dizmo said:

To be fair, Samsung puts out considerably more handsets than Nokia does. I'd say that 7% differential really isn't that bad.

Samsung probably puts out the mosy handsets, their lineup is all over the place (Galaxy S, Note, J 16, J 17, J 18, M, A 1st gen, A 16, A 17, A 18, A00, Wide, C, etc...). It's no surprise they're slow at updating.

[Yongtjunkit]

My Samsung galaxy J12016 doesn't even get any android version update..... It's still running touchwiz on android 5.1.1 and they stopped providing security update to the phone already

 

Upgraded to Xiaomi redmi 5 + 1 year ago and comes with android 7.1.2 miui 9, now running android 8.1 with miui 10

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, Arika S said:

now let's see the security update stats. i feel like most manufactures only provide proper security updates for about 2 years, then if you get one it's because of some crucial vulnerability that is found. 

 

This is something that Apple does better.

Not sure about the rest of the manufacturers but Samsung is still releasing security updates for the Galaxy S7, and that phone is over 3.5 years old at this point. Samsung is actually really good when it comes to updates. At least for their flagships.

[Sauron]

14 hours ago, Arika S said:

i did try lineage OS on one of my devices, but it absolutely killed battery life, since it doesn't go into a sleep state, it just seems to turn the screen off.

It's a bit of a hit or miss situation, it depends on the specific rom and device.

[dalekphalm]

Interesting, but I'm not sure how relevant it is.

 

Nokia has 6 different phones that are current models (as per their website). Samsung has something like 16 different current models.

 

So it's more work for Samsung to validate each phone for the latest updates.

 

Granted, Samsung is also a much more massive company with more resources to devote to these issues, so - at best, I'd call it a wash.

[Commodus]

11 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Interesting, but I'm not sure how relevant it is.

 

Nokia has 6 different phones that are current models (as per their website). Samsung has something like 16 different current models.

 

So it's more work for Samsung to validate each phone for the latest updates.

 

Granted, Samsung is also a much more massive company with more resources to devote to these issues, so - at best, I'd call it a wash.

 

I'd argue that Samsung really doesn't have an excuse.  It's a giant company that could easily throw resources at speeding up development and testing for Android updates.  I'm not so naive as to think it can post OS updates right away, but it shouldn't take half a year when even LG can deliver OS upgrades months earlier.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Commodus said:

I'd argue that Samsung really doesn't have an excuse.  It's a giant company that could easily throw resources at speeding up development and testing for Android updates.  I'm not so naive as to think it can post OS updates right away, but it shouldn't take half a year when even LG can deliver OS upgrades months earlier.

I agree that Samsung - and Android as a whole ecosystem, fails horribly at this.