Samsung’s original Galaxy Fold will now receive less frequent updates
Samsung provides the best software support in the Android ecosystem, with its recent mid-range Galaxy A and flagship devices being promised up to five years of security patches. Older devices are eligible to receive three years of OS updates and four years of security patches. As devices in the company’s roster age, they move from a monthly security update cycle to a quarterly or biannual one to make room for new products. That’s what is happening with theoriginal Samsung Galaxy Fold, which is moving to a quarterly security patch schedule as it nears its end of life in terms of software support.
The Galaxy Fold was Samsung’s first foldable phone. It debuted in 2019 with Android 9.0 Pie and was updated toAndroid 12-based One UI 4 in December 2021. Since then, the company has only been rolling out security patches for the device, and even that will become less frequent now. Samsung’sSecurity Updates pagehas been updated to reflect that its first foldable phone will receive security updates once every three months going forward. The same stands true for the 5G variant of the phone that launched in the US and selected other markets.
Support for the Galaxy J7 and J6+ from 2018 is being dropped entirely, so they won’t receive further updates from Samsung. They were previously receiving biannual security patches.
There are some new additions to the list of devices eligible to receive security updates from the Korean giant. The recently announced low-end Galaxy A04e will receive quarterly security updates, while the W23 and W23 Flip are eligible for monthly patches. These foldable phones launched in China this October and are a more premium version of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Flip 4. They feature a ceramic back with decorative design elements and pack up to 16GB RAM and 512GB storage.
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