Meet the brand new boss, similar because the outdated boss
Smartphone makers have come an extended, good distance of their strategy to dealing with Android updates, and we have seen firms like Samsung actually rise to some extent the place they’re aggressive with Google when it comes to velocity and launch cadence. However for all of the credit score Samsung’s replace program is due, there’s nonetheless been one obvious blind spot: the shortage of assist for seamless A/B updates. Final fall, we discovered ourselves hopeful that the Galaxy S23 collection may buck the development and at last embrace seamless updates, however sadly, we are able to now affirm that will not be the case.
The thought behind seamless assist is to attenuate your downtime when updating your telephone. As a substitute of getting to sit down by way of a prolonged reboot and set up course of, a telephone with seamless updates can set up its software program to a second partition whilst you proceed to make use of the primary one. Then, when all the things’s prepared, you’ll be able to boot to the brand new one with little disruption.
As Google was placing the ending touches on Android 13 final yr, Mishaal Rahman noticed that the corporate was planning to mandate assist for digital A/B partitions. These digital partitions had emerged because the optimum method to strategy seamless updates, whereas conserving storage necessities down. And if Samsung needed to assist digital A/B partitions, it positive felt probably that its telephones would equally assist seamless updates.

Alas, that isn’t the case. Having gotten our palms on the brand new Galaxy S23 Extremely, we ran the telephone by way of the Treble Data instrument, and might affirm that Samsung just isn’t turning over a brand new leaf — the telephone as soon as once more doesn’t assist seamless updates. Whereas that is removed from truly shocking, giving Samsung’s established reluctance to make this modification (to not point out its snug relationship with Google that in all probability spares it additional strain), it is nonetheless irritating.
Perhaps subsequent yr will lastly be the one to ditch 128GB and depart Samsung with even fewer excuses for why it will not play good with seamless updates.

Supply: Samsung
Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely
In case you’re on the lookout for the perfect of the perfect out of Android in 2023, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely is it. It is the one one within the S23 lineup to function the corporate’s flagship 200MP ISOCELL HP2 digicam sensor, the one one with a 5,000mAh battery, and the one one to push the storage envelope as much as 1TB. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Cell Platform for Galaxy ought to run quick and straightforward and all the things on that 6.8″ Dynamic AMOLED 2x show (the one one within the collection with adaptive refresh charges between 1 and 120Hz) ought to look clean and delightful. And who can Neglect about all of the note-taking options and the added comfort the S Pen brings?