Samsung matrix phone. Here s every Samsung device eligible for four major Android updates

Here‘s every Samsung device eligible for four major Android updates

Samsung is currently the undisputed king of software updates. The company previously declared that it would provide three years of Android updates to all flagships from 2019 and later. Taking things a step further, Samsung announced in February 2022 that a whole bunch of Galaxy devices will be eligible for four years of Android updates, including tablets, flagships, foldable phones, cheaper Galaxy A series phones, and Galaxy Watch models.

over, Samsung also announced that all devices from 2019 or later will get four years of security updates. That includes every Galaxy line: Galaxy S, Note, Z, A, XCover, and Tab, for a total of over 130 models. Meanwhile, some flagship devices like the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S22, Galaxy Z Fold 4, and others are scheduled to get five years of security updates.

With all that in mind, here are all the Samsung devices currently eligible for three and four years of major Android updates.

Editor’s note: We’ll continue to update this list of devices getting three and four years of updates from Samsung as more information arises.

Samsung devices eligible for four Android updates

Samsung extended its commitment to Android updates with the launch of the Galaxy S22 series. Fortunately, some older Galaxy flagships and other devices also got the update love from Samsung and became eligible for four years of Android software updates.

Samsung Galaxy S-series

The Galaxy S23 and S22 series are both eligible for four Android updates from Samsung. The latter launched with Android 12, so they should get updates till Android 16. Meanwhile, the S23 devices should be updated till Android 17. Below is a complete list of Galaxy S-series phones eligible for Samsung’s extended update policy.

Samsung Galaxy A series

Samsung’s older Galaxy A series phones are currently only eligible for three years of Android updates. However, the latest launched crop of Galaxy A series phones comes with the promise of four major Android upgrades. Below are the phones that’ll benefit from the policy.

Samsung foldable phones

Some of the recent Samsung foldable devices also get a four-year update commitment from the company. These include the following:

Newer foldables will still be eligible for three Android updates.

Samsung Galaxy Tablets

Samsung’s newest Galaxy Tab S8, Tab S8 Plus, and Tab S8 Ultra launched with Android 12. With the new policy, they should get Android 16 at some point in the future. All upcoming Galaxy S tablets will also be eligible for four years of Android updates.

Samsung Galaxy Watch

The Galaxy Watch 4, Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, the Galaxy Watch 5 series, and all upcoming Galaxy Watches come under the purview of Samsung’s four-year update policy. This includes upgrades to One UI Watch and Wear OS.

Samsung devices eligible for three Android updates

Samsung Galaxy S series

Samsung has promised three years of Android updates to all Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S20 variants in the Galaxy S series. Sadly, the Galaxy S9 series isn’t included in the list. This means that Android 10 would be the last update for the S9 and S9 Plus, given that they launched with Android Oreo.

As for the Galaxy S10 series, you can expect Android 12 to be its last update. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S20, S20 Plus, S20 Ultra, and S20 FE are in line to get Android 13 in the future. Below is a list of all Samsung Galaxy S-series phones eligible for three years of Android updates.

Samsung Galaxy Note series

In the Galaxy Note series, only the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 20 phones are eligible for three years of Android OS updates. So we’re not expecting to see Android 11 on the Galaxy Note 9. Android 12 will be its last major OS update for the Galaxy Note 10 series. The Galaxy Note 20 phones, just like the Galaxy S20 flagships, will be eligible to get Android 13. Below is a list of all Samsung Galaxy Note phones eligible for three years of Android updates.

Other Samsung Galaxy devices eligible for three Android updates

Besides Samsung’s flagship phones, the company will also extend its three-year Android update policy to devices like the Galaxy Tabs, high-end Galaxy A series phones, and foldables. Below is a complete list.

Matrix Phone

The intellectual property depicted in this model is not affiliated with or endorsed by the original rights holders and must be used under editorial use restrictions.

Matrix Phone

This is a highly detaled recreation of the Samsung SPH-N270 mobile phone which was styled on the film prop created for the movie Matrix Reloaded. The phones most notable feature was its spring loaded earpiece which snapped open to reveal the screen. The phone was marketed solely to fans of the series and saw a limited distribution across the USA and Europe. The model comes complete with an accurate set of textures for the keypad and a choice of 2 textures for the main screen.

The intellectual property depicted in this model is not affiliated with or endorsed by the original rights holders and must be used under editorial use restrictions.

Best Buy Scene. Unreal Engine 4

The intellectual property depicted in this model is not affiliated with or endorsed by the original rights holders and must be used under editorial use restrictions.

Animated Textures Materials UV Mapped 444,716 Polygons 520,560 Vertices Non-overlapping Unwrapped UVs Polygonal Quads/Tris Geometry

Airport Interior Collection

The intellectual property depicted in this model is not affiliated with or endorsed by the original rights holders and must be used under editorial use restrictions.

OTHER TEXTURES 3D STUDIO FBX 3DS MAX OBJ 3D STUDIO FBX 3DS MAX OBJ 3D STUDIO FBX 3DS MAX OBJ 3D STUDIO FBX 3DS MAX OBJ

Airport Big Interior Collection

The intellectual property depicted in this model is not affiliated with or endorsed by the original rights holders and must be used under editorial use restrictions.

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A little bit gimmicky but mostly just a solid entry into the smartphone space.

Android Central Verdict

Nothing has delivered a stellar second-generation phone and a first-generation launch in North America. It successfully challenges the Galaxies and Pixels of the region with a competitive price, unique features, and a solid overall experience. Nothing is an extremely compelling option if you’re looking for something a little different this year.

Pros

• Gorgeous design
• Great price
• Good performance and battery life
• Unique features and UI
• High PWM rate (1,920Hz or higher)
• Very capable camera

Cons

• – Low-light shots are lacking
• – Image stabilization could be better
• – No telephoto lens

Why you can trust Android Central

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Last year’s Nothing Phone (1) was a spectacle of a device. Nothing CEO and founder Carl Pei is a hype man if nothing else, and his new company’s first device was certainly unique, but it had its flaws. Chief among them were some issues with the hardware and software that just weren’t as full-featured as phones from companies like Google, Samsung, and Apple.

This year, Nothing is leaning into the fun factor with the Nothing Phone (2), a phone that certainly looks like a Nothing Phone, complete with the lighted glyph interface on the back. The hardware has been refined, with a slightly taller build, a curved glass back, and a faster processor. But the real improvement is in the software.

From the moment you turn it on, you can tell this thing was designed to provide a certain look and experience from the get-go. The monochrome dot matrix look is everywhere, from the initial setup to each and every widget and app Nothing makes. It’s incredibly stylish, and Nothing even launched several new unique features that are just plain fun, and it’s an easy recommendation as an alternative to the best Android phones made by Samsung and Google.

Nothing Phone (2): Price and availability

The Nothing Phone (2)’s release marks the first time Nothing is officially offering a phone in North America. That means you’ll get full 5G speeds with full network support on ATT and T-Mobile. It’s not officially compatible with Verizon.

The Nothing Phone (2) is available in both white and dark gray colorways starting at 599 USD / 929 CAD for a model with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. Upgrades are available with 12GB of RAM, starting at 699 USD / 999 CAD for 256GB of storage and 799 USD / 1,099 CAD for 512GB of storage.

The Nothing Phone (2) is sold directly through Nothing’s website and has been available since July 17, 2023.

In the box, you’ll find the phone, a new USB-C cable with transparent connectors, the same snazzy transparent SIM ejector tool from the first phone, and a handful of small pamphlets. The packaging is entirely plastic-free, and Nothing even prints the phone’s carbon footprint on the box.

Nothing was able to reduce the carbon footprint of the phone by using less plastic and more recycled materials. The Nothing Phone (2)’s carbon footprint is 53.45 KG CO2E, a full 5.05 KG CO2E lower than Nothing Phone (1). SGS certifies this rating, so you know it’s legitimate and not something only Nothing’s marketing team came up with.

Everything about the unboxing process for this phone is beautiful. As with last year’s Phone (1), the Nothing Phone (2) comes packaged in a box that has no openings except for a small pull tab at the top. Like a gum package, you’ll use this tab to tear the box open and slide the phone packaging out.

The company is headed by huge names in the design industry, and you can tell Nothing takes design seriously just from the box alone. A new USB-C cable with transparent connectors is included and continues to flow along with Nothing’s transparent design mantra, found in products like the Nothing Ear (2).

Nothing Phone (2): Design and display

There’s no denying that Nothing is still styling its phone similarly to an iPhone in every way, complete with the faux deconstructed Apple logo on the back in lighted glyphs. But that doesn’t mean it’s just a copycat.

The curved glass back makes the phone feel so much nicer to hold. As my colleague Andrew Myrick put it, This is how I want the iPhone to feel like when I pick it up.

The frame is made of 100% recycled aluminum and, combined with the curved back, feels elegant and premium. Not everyone will enjoy the flat sides, but the argument between flat and curved sides is more of a preference, anyway.

The back of the Nothing Phone (2) is absolutely striking and immediately recognizable. While there’s little functional purpose behind the semi-transparent design, the company’s lighted Glyph Interface has proven to be a boon for setting the phone apart in more ways than just looks.

Those LED lights on the back of the phone have been upgraded and now have more functionality. Phone (2) has 11 LED strips on the back, and each strip is made up of 33 individual zones — up from 12 on Phone (1). Nothing says it designed the Glyphs so users can be more present in their everyday lives.

There’s even a new sensor that tunes the brightness of the Glyphs automatically, ensuring that you don’t get blinded in the dark by a notification.

I think these are the people that will enjoy these glyphs the most, as they can be fully customized and act a bit like a Do Not Disturb mode, as you can select which apps display Glyph lights and customize the pattern for each app.

Furthermore, some apps let you even dial down into individual notification types or conversations. So if your significant other messages you, the lighting pattern can be different than if someone else is trying to get your attention.

There’s even a cool new Glyph Composer that lets you make your own ringtones, complete with lighted Glyphs and custom sounds by EDM group Swedish House Mafia.

The Nothing Phone (2)’s display is an interesting beast. Instead of being made by LG or Samsung — the companies that make the vast, vast majority of OLED displays on the market — this one is made by a little-known Chinese company called Visionox.

But throw away any preconceived notions about what a smaller company might be able to do, because Visionox makes displays that are far more eye-friendly than Samsung‘s awful AMOLED panels and even better than LG’s OLED panels. In some ways, at least.

The OLED on the Nothing Phone (2) uses a PWM rate of 1,920Hz at the default dynamic refresh rate (1-120Hz). Running at 90Hz bumps that PWM rate up to 2,160Hz, making it far more eye-friendly than any phone Samsung or Apple has made in years. There’s no way to force this 90Hz mode, however, so this rate might be irrelevant to daily use.

With that being said, I was only able to use it for a day or two before PWM sickness set in. The issue of display flicker sickness is a complicated one, and, unfortunately for those of us affected by it, no single feature improvement will work as a solution for everyone.

This display, for instance, flickers at an extremely high rate — nearly 10x what Samsung Galaxy and Pixel phones with OLED displays do — but it also modulates quite a bit at all brightness levels. From what I can tell, it’s that deeper modulation that drives my eyes crazy and, ultimately, what makes this phone difficult to use compared to phones like the Motorola Edge (2023).

Using a high-speed shutter and high ISO rate to analyze the PWM dimming method, it seems that anything above 47% brightness should be relatively OK for most people. Go below 47%, however, and some craziness begins to ensue. If you own the phone, I wouldn’t recommend going below this brightness level if you have sensitive eyes.

Nothing Phone (2): Performance and battery life

While the Phone (2) sports last year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, there’s never a time when I feel like performance is lacking. As Nothing says, the 8 Gen 1 is a proven processor that’s both efficient and fast, ensuring that gaming on the phone is smooth and daily tasks happen without lagging, all while the phone sips from the 4,700mAh battery.

I played quite a few games on the Nothing Phone (2) over my first two weeks of testing and let my son’s friends play Roblox and other titles on it, too. True to my expectations, the phone never lagged or slowed down, even in graphics-heavy titles. This is the great Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, after all.

As a child of the 80s and 90s, I have a fondness for retro-chic design. Clearly, so do the designers at Nothing. Every app and widget Nothing designed for this phone fits perfectly into this design, and it’s so refreshing to see something so well-honed and executed make its way into a consumer product, especially one that’s only a second-generation product.

There’s something calming about the Nothing Phone (2)’s home screen that I just can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s the entirely grayscale color palette or the bevy of beautiful, circular widgets and folders? Either way, I love the way this home screen looks, and that feeling channels itself into other apps and settings menus throughout the experience.

Nothing has added a handful of new widgets, including the ability to add any quick toggle as a home screen widget. Additionally, you can customize icons to make them all grayscale or all one color. Nothing says the idea here is to make using your phone more thoughtful instead of being swayed to use one app more than another due to color marketing science.

In short, this is what the experience on Phone (1) should have felt like, and Nothing OS 2.0 is proving to be a substantial upgrade in every way possible. Nothing is also offering three major OS upgrades and four years of bi-monthly security updates, matching what many other Android manufacturers have begun to offer, even if it comes just short of Samsung and Google’s update promises.

Nothing has worked to incorporate the Glyph lights into more things, including deeper support for customized notification light patterns. Apps will all deliver the same notification light pattern, but you can choose special apps that keep the top-right line illuminated until you check the notification.

The cameras have been substantially improved over the original Nothing Phone (1). This isn’t just a better camera, though. It’s a genuinely excellent one that surprises me every single time I use it. Shots are crisp and clean, dynamic range is generally good (although it could be better at times), colors are natural, and portrait mode cutouts and bokeh are out-of-this-world good.

Some of this has to do with software tuning improvements Nothing made over the past year. Other improvements are down to hardware. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 inside has a substantially more capable ISP (image signal processor), and the main camera has been swapped out for a newer, better sensor.

The Galaxy Fold isn’t the only crazy phone Samsung has released — here are some of its wildest devices from over the years

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• Samsung is no stranger to experimenting with form factors for smartphones, as it proved again this week with the Galaxy Fold.
• The gadget maker has released many unconventional phones over the years, from flip phones with swivel hinges to phones with curved screens.

After much anticipation, Samsung on Wednesday finally unveiled its first foldable smartphone, the appropriately named Galaxy Fold.

Starting at a whopping 1,980, the Galaxy Fold is a 4.6-inch phone that unfolds to become a 7.3-inch tablet. Samsung is pitching the Galaxy Fold as a luxury one-of-a-kind device for those in need of a gadget with more screen space than your average smartphone. During its keynote, the company boasted that the Galaxy Fold can run three apps simultaneously on the screen, for example.

Samsung has a long history of releasing unconventional phones that experiment with form factors. Here‘s a look at some of the most distinguished phones the South Korean electronics giant has made over the years.

Samsung Juke (2007)

With the Juke, Samsung attempted to combine a phone with an MP3 player, resulting in a super skinny phone that served as a music player when shut and a phone when opened.

The phone’s keypad was tucked away under the screen, which swiveled out like a switchblade — undoubtedly the phone’s most memorable characteristic. It also had a metal scroll wheel for navigating the tiny screen in music-player mode.

Samsung Galaxy Round (2013)

Curved screens have become a staple of Samsung’s latest flagship phones, and it all started in 2013 with the Galaxy Round. The device’s screen was concave, meant to make the phone more comfortable to hold up to your ear and in your hand.

Samsung Galaxy Golden (2013)

Even in the era of the smartphone, Samsung hasn’t given up on flip phones.

The Samsung Galaxy Golden, which the company launched in 2013, according to the tech website Gadgets 360, appears to be a smartphone squeezed into a flip-phone form factor. It had two 3.7-inch touchscreens: one on the clamshell cover, and one inside.

Samsung Reclaim (2009)

Like many phones of its time, the Samsung Reclaim had a sliding keyboard. What made this phone stand out was its eco-friendly design, with recycled-plastic construction and packaging made from recycled paper, CNET said in its review from 2009.

That and its bright-green color, of course.

Galaxy S4 Zoom (2013)

As the name implies, the Galaxy S4 Zoom is a smartphone/camera that supported a 10X optical zoom. It essentially looked like a Galaxy S4 with a camera stuck to its back.

Samsung released the phone as a variant of the Galaxy S4 in 2013.

Samsung Beat DJ (2009)

Samsung’s Beat DJ wasn’t just designed for listening to music — it was made for DJ-ing too, apparently.

The oddly shaped phone included a DJ app that made it possible to scratch a track by pressing the middle of the screen. It appeared to be a flop though; CNET said in its 2009 review that the app would be the most unused feature of all time.

It also included Bang Olufsen audio.

Bang Olufsen Serene (2006)

The Bang Olufsen Serene may be one of the most oddly designed phones, with a distinguished trapezoid shape and a rotary-style keyboard.

The audio company partnered with Samsung on the device, which was marketed as a luxury gadget for audiophiles. It was priced at 1,275 unlocked when it launched, according to CNET’s review from 2006.

But it wasn’t very practical, as the review said a screwdriver was required to access the battery and the SIM card.

Samsung SPH-N270, commonly called the Matrix phone (2003)

When it comes to Samsung’s SPH-N270, the appeal is in its novelty.

The phone is probably recognizable only to those who have seen The Matrix Reloaded, considering Samsung released this phone in 2003 to coincide with the movie’s launch and didn’t market it much beyond that, according to PhoneArena.

Samsung is said to have produced a limited number of units, making it a rare find today that can sell for as much as 600 on eBay.