Credit: David Imel / Android Government
- Samsung Galaxy S21 owners have discovered that the phone still does not support Android’s seamless updates.
- You will need to recharge your phone when there is a system upgrade.
- It’s not sure why Samsung did not adopt the technology.
Do not expect your Galaxy S21 to quietly update in the background as you go to other tasks. 9to5Google, Brandon Lee and others have discovered that the new Samsung phone range does not support Android’s seamless updates, despite tips Google needs from Android 11 onwards.
By omitting seamless updates from Samsung, you can install Galaxy S21 patches the old-fashioned way – that is, recharge your phone and leave it unusable for minutes. This can feel archaic, especially when Google first launched a seamless update to Android 7.0 Nougat in 2016.
The company did not explain why it does not use seamless updates with the Galaxy S21. We asked Samsung if it could expand.
Related: Samsung has raised the bar for Android updates
Storage can play a role. Seamless updates in Android consume about 3 GB of storage due to partition – Samsung may be reluctant to chew up that space, especially if the Galaxy S21 family does not support microSD card. It can be worth it if it frees up valuable space for your programs and media.
This does not prevent Samsung from launching seamless updates in the future. However, we will not count on it, and it will not be surprising if there are only changes when that 3 GB of space becomes trivial for many users. For now, you need to find something else to do while installing Galaxy device patches – and the upgrades should take time accordingly.