Android 12 is coming to these Samsung phones, but you should probably wait

by david warner December 29, 2021

Samsung was once the last manufacturer you’d expect to push out regular and early updates to its recent phones, even those that were only a year old. Today’s Samsung, however, is almost completely different, and it is making a name for itself by being one of the first to make Android 12 available on its flagships — even if it is almost three months late. More surprising, however, is the news that it has started pushing out the same One UI 4 upgrade to its older phones, though owners might want to sit this one out at least for a few days.

One UI 4 itself isn’t such a big jump compared to One UI 3 that’s already running on many Samsung phones. What does make it substantial, however, is the fact that it also brings with it Android 12. Visually speaking, you might not see traces of Google’s new Material You design language due to Samsung’s custom skin, but the underlying changes are still there.

Those big changes underneath Samsung’s own modifications caused some disruption among early adopters. The range of bugs experienced by Galaxy S21, Galaxy Z Fold 3, and Galaxy Z Flip 3 owners is a bit wide, though some have narrowed a few of those down to incompatibility with Google Play. Fortunately, Samsung made the correct move and worked with Google on getting that fixed.

With that last showstopper out of the way, Samsung restarted the One UI 4 rollout to those affected smartphones. Even better, it has apparently expanded the release outside of South Korea to global markets. In fact, the company seems to be so confident about the stability of the update that it is now pushing One UI 4 with Android 12 to flagship phones it launched in 2020.

A number of last year’s high-end phones have started receiving the stable update to Android 12 (via SamMobile 1,2,3). That includes not only the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20 series but also the Galaxy Z Fold 2. The most surprising news is that even the Galaxy S20 FE is part of that rollout, even if it wasn’t included in any beta program.

That last bit might raise a red flag for owners, and given the events of the past weeks, they might want to delay upgrading until after more daring explorers have tested the waters first. Worrying about a broken update might be the last thing people have in mind to welcome the new year. If you do decide to dive in head-first, be sure to at least back up all your important data, just in case things don’t go as planned — Samsung explains how to do that on its support site.

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