- OnePlus COO and president, Kinder Liu, shared the company’s reasoning behind four years of software updates.
- Samsung and Google offer up to seven years of software updates.
- Liu explains how longer software updates might not help if your phone can’t keep up.
Google is known to offer the longest software updates for its smartphones. Samsung also joined in recently by announcing up to seven years of software updates for its flagship Galaxy S24 series. OnePlus, however, decided to keep it at four years for its smartphones, and it most likely won’t increase even with future phones. The brand has explained why it decided to do so.
OnePlus explains why you’re not getting 7 years of software updates
- OnePlus doesn’t plan on increasing the software update even in the future, according to the brand’s COO and president, Kinder Liu.
- “Simply offering longer software update policies completely misses the point. It’s not just software update policies that are important to the user, it’s the fluency of your phone’s user experience too,” Liu said in an interview with Tom’s Guide.
- What Liu seems to be suggesting is that longer software updates don’t make sense if your device can’t keep up with the new changes. In terms of security, your phone will be protected with the updates but the performance might not be the same.
- OnePlus’ reasoning does make sense to a certain extent with smartphone tech evolving rapidly, and phones launching every quarter. But it’s also worth noting that flagships come with the best hardware so you will still get a good experience even in long-term usage.
Liu added this point about battery life, one that’s the quickest to diminish on a smartphone. So after seven years, your phone’s juice will most likely run out much faster than it used to. He also mentioned that the OnePlus 12 and 12R went through TÜV SUD testings that helped determine the devices would run “fast and smooth” for four years. This way it would be able to keep up with the software updates as well.
