After being widely criticized for not updating its Galaxy S8 to Android 10 while upgrading older phones, Samsung’s customer care told a user that the phone may get the update after all. But don’t get your hopes too high yet.
Samsung fan site SamMobile reports that a “disgruntled Galaxy S8 owner” called the company’s customer care line to ask why he was not getting an Android 10 update. The customer care rep told him that “the Android 10 update is planned for the device," which goes against what Samsung announced officially back in September.
If that’s the case, it will be great news. There is no technical reason that bars the phone from running the software — the 2017 Galaxy S8 should be perfectly capable of supporting Android 10.
In fact, Samsung is planning updates for lesser phones that were released at the same time as the S8. The Galaxy A7 shown in the update list below is one example. This demonstrates that Samsung’s not supporting Android 10 on the Galaxy S8 is not a technical decision but likely a marketing one. The Korean company has a long standing — and ridiculous — policy of only updating its flagship phones with two major versions of Android. This lack of support is precisely the main reason why Android is such a fragmented platform.
The only sure Samsung Android 10 updates
But don’t get your hopes too high. As SamMobile says, the Samsung customer care rep's reply may be a fluke. It would be weird to learn about a decision that would change company policy so drastically through some random rep instead of a full press release. Especially knowing that such a change would give Samsung a much needed reputation boost.
For now, these are the only phone officially getting the Android 10 update:
Galaxy S Line
- Galaxy S10
- Galaxy S10+
- Galaxy S10e
- Galaxy S9
- Galaxy S9+
Galaxy Note Line
- Galaxy Note 10
- Galaxy Note 10+
- Galaxy Note 9
Galaxy M Line
- Galaxy M40
- Galaxy M30
- Galaxy M30s
- Galaxy M20
- Galaxy M10
Galaxy J Line
- Galaxy J8
- Galaxy J7 Duo
- Galaxy J7 2018
- Galaxy J6
- Galaxy J6+
- Galaxy J5 2018
- Galaxy J4
- Galaxy J4+
- Galaxy J3 2018
Galaxy A Line
- Galaxy A90 5G
- Galaxy A80
- Galaxy A70
- Galaxy A60
- Galaxy A50
- Galaxy A40
- Galaxy A30
- Galaxy A30s
- Galaxy A20
- Galaxy A20e
- Galaxy A10
- Galaxy A10s
- Galaxy A10e
- Galaxy A9
- Galaxy A9 Star Lite
- Galaxy A9 Pro 2019
- Galaxy A8
- Galaxy A8 Star Lite
- Galaxy A7
- Galaxy A6
- Galaxy A6+
And that’s it. Hopefully, Samsung will change this and include the S8. There’s no technical excuse not to have Android 10 on that phone, which is way more powerful than many of the phones in the lists above.
Also, we still don’t know when those phones will get Android 10, but Google recently announced that at least some will happen before the end of 2019.
