Samsung has recently released its latest entry level phone, the Galaxy A16 5G. While most of the features remain regular for its class, the South Korean tech giant surprised everyone by promising Android update support for several years. While it doesn’t match the latest flagship level commitment, it’s impressively close.
With Samsung improving the update policy even for entry level phones, users are now assured that they can use their new phone for many years without losing official support.
Galaxy A16 5G: How Many Android Updates Will It Receive?
The Samsung Galaxy A16 comes with 6 years of Android OS updates and Security updates. This means the entry-level phone will get updates until October 2030.
Users will be able to enjoy the Galaxy A16 while receiving latest goodies up to Android 20 update, unless Google decides to go with the unusual naming pattern.
Samsung is confident of its promise for the entry level phone. This means, we can expect same promise for other upcoming budget phones to be released in the future.
Currently, budget Galaxy phones only come with three or four years of security updates. So if Samsung adopts the six-year Android update for all budget models, it will be a huge upgrade and could attract more users who want to keep their phones for many years.
Many brands promise to provide Android OS update for a good number of years. But many brands fail to deliver updates on time, for instance, Motorola. While Samsung has a good record of releasing updates on time. They release updates for budget phones within a month or two of releasing updates for flagship phones.
What’s the Catch?
There is one more thing you should know about Galaxy A16’s six year Android OS policy. The first update for the Galaxy A16 will be the Android 15 which will be available with One UI 7 in early 2025. And it has a requirement of 4GB RAM and 64GB minimum storage.
The Galaxy A16 comes with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage, so it hardly qualifies for the update. Although Samsung has promised six years of updates, there will be doubts about the hardware capability.
However, Samsung optimizes Android updates for its devices and release them as One UI, so they may be able to squeeze out six years of update with optimization. All we can do is trust Samsung promise, as the hardware requirement will increase for the upcoming Android updates.
Samsung will soon release the LTE variant of Galaxy A16. Let’s see if it will also come with six year Android update support or not. What do you think of the new update policy for Galaxy A16? Will Samsung be able to keep its promise? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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