The mobile industry’s heavyweight champion of software updates in the last few years was surprisingly beaten to the stable Android 13 punch a couple of weeks ago by one of its biggest rivals (at least on this particular front), but Samsung‘s counteroffensive is likely to be fierce and kick off with a bang before long.
While we obviously didn’t need official company confirmation to know that, it’s certainly nice to get the most specific such confirmation to date on when to expect non-beta Android 13 goodies to start rolling out to the first Galaxy devices.
Said devices will unsurprisingly be all the members of the high-end S22 family, and the timing of their stable over-the-air Android 13 delivery is currently set at “this month.” That’s still a little vague, but at least Galaxy S22, S22+, and S22 Ultra owners can now rest assured knowing (for certain) that they won’t have to wait more than a few weeks to leave Android 12 behind.
Of course, there can sometimes be a pretty substantial gap between the start of an OTA update rollout and its spread to all users of a specific phone (or three) around the world. Then again, we have reason to believe this Android 13-based One UI 5.0 deployment will begin in just a few days, thus leaving plenty of time for a truly and comprehensively global expansion by the end of October.
Even if Samsung only ends up barely making its self-imposed deadline, a late October Android 13 delivery start for the S22 lineup would still handily beat last year’s mid-November Android 12 rollout for the Galaxy S21 series.
The world’s number one smartphone vendor should also easily trump the updating speed of the vast majority of its rivals… for more than one handset family. That’s because we fully expect a bunch of other Galaxy devices to board the Android 13 train as well by the end of the year, including the S21, S21+, S21 Ultra, S21 FE, Z Fold 4, Z Flip 4, Z Fold 3, Z Flip 3, and perhaps even the mid-range A53.
Otherwise put, the software support king looks intent on retaining its crown for at least another year despite an early bid for the throne from OnePlus.
