The good old Samsung Galaxy Note II, one of the best smartphones Samsung produced in recent years, is not done yet. According to Samsung Poland, the over 2 year old smartphone which made phablets more human and acceptable to many will be updated to Android 5.x Lollipop.
“Yes, our spokesman confirmed today during #GZR that the Galaxy Note 2 will receive the update. But we have no further information.”
The news of Samsung preparing to update the Note II come as a surprise as the device is way past the traditional 18 month support window that carriers, manufacturers and even the custodian of Android, Google itself, often cite when they decide to stop updating certain hardware. Though we can only cross our fingers and hope that indeed the update will be availed at some point, this is highly welcome. More so when we can still remember what happened to the international (non-LTE model) Galaxy S III. To its credit though, the Galaxy Note II like every other Note that came after it packed killer specs and even the current Samsung flagship, the Galaxy S5, has 2 GB RAM, something the 2012 Note II had back in the day. As far as specs go, the Note II is hard to pass by even at this moment and since Samsung maintains its own Exynos chip that means it is not beholden to anyone for binary updates and whatnot so it ain’t a chore to show the old guy some love when the company is done updating the latest high end devices in its long Galaxy lineup.
Should the Note II get Android 5.x then it would have come a long way as it debuted with Android 4.1.2 and has been updated ever since to 4.3 Jelly Bean and 4.4 KitKat. Note that Samsung made Note II users wait for over a year before it provided the first major firmware update to the device that bumped the version number from 4.1.2 to 4.3 Jelly Bean. Probably this late Lollipop gift is compensation for that period when Note II users had to make do with outdated firmware as others savoured the minor upgrades provided by Android 4.2.x?
The company has already done a good job by availing Lollipop for the Galaxy S4, S5, Note 3, Note 4 and the sleek Galaxy Alpha and going against expectations to update the retired general, the Note II, only adds more clout to the Galaxy Note brand and the value customers get over time.
Source: Twitter
