The android 4.4.2 KitKat update has turned into a complete chaos for the Samsung Galaxy S3 owners, while Samsung’s US division and carriers claim to provide it, the leaks tell a whole different story for the GT-I9300 and among all this the International 4G LTE GT-I9305 variant seems to have vanished completely. Here we take a look at all the information on the Android 4.4.2 update for all the variants of the Samsung Galaxy S3.
Carrier variants in U.S.A
Samsung USA has already issued a complete list of Galaxy devices that shall receive the much anticipated android 4.4.2 update, the Galaxy S3 did manage to make it in that list but there is no real time frame that defines it. The only US carrier that has acknowledged to deliver the update for the Galaxy S3 is Sprint but again with no specific time span, the only good thing about this whole scenario is that the Galaxy S3 US carrier variants are presently the only variants that will surely receive the android 4.4.2 update, may it not be soon enough. Considering the traditional procedure the carriers follow to bring an update, one must not expect android 4.4.2 to hit the Galaxy S3 anytime before mid-April, may it be Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, US Cellular or Verizon Wireless. Also what shall be kept in mind is that the update won’t bring a new Touchwhiz, Camera Interface or anything “Real Big”, it will be just another minor upgrade for better and stable performance, with some tweaks here and there.
International Variant (GT-I9300)
The GT-I9300 is the International (3G) variant of the Galaxy S3 and is sold in most countries that don’t have 4G LTE network capabilities (mostly Asian and African), it packs 1 GB RAM and a Quad-Core Exynos processor. The first leak about the android 4.4.2 update for the Galaxy S3 (GT-I9300) arrived from Samsung Poland that stated “That the Galaxy S3 (Gt-I9300) shall not be updated to android 4.4.2 due to low amount of RAM” but soon after the source credibility becAme the factor of this to be a fake news after all and hopes began to emerge once again. Just a week ago we were able to obtain a leaked Samsung document that included the Galaxy S3 (GT-I9300) for the android 4.4.2 update scheduled for April-May, another leak followed it that included a screenshot of the Android 4.4.2 test build running on Developer unit of GT-I9300, this made things better as it indicated that Samsung is processing the update and it may arrive in future if not next week.
While all the Galaxy S3 owners were happy and expecting the update to be under preparation, there was another source of confirmation from Samsung Mobile Arabia, when they responded to a curious Galaxy S3 owner “Ashif Poochengal” who confronted the regional Samsung Mobile division about the arrival of the Android 4.4.2 update on the their official Facebook page, the response was positive stating the update to be available “By the end of this month” but now they have retracted their statement saying “as of now, there is no plans in updating the Galaxy S3″.
Hence all these leaks have been indicating that the GT-I9300 isn’t doing well when it comes to android 4.4.2 update. May it be because of Samsung’s touchwhiz being too heavy to run coupled with Android 4.4.2 with 1GB RAM or the Exynos Chipset the Galaxy S3 has isn’t just allowing Samsung to develop a stable build just yet and hence they are quite for now. Sammobile also commented saying that they don’t see an Android 4.4.2 update for the Galaxy S3 on Samsung’s servers till yet.
International LTE Variant (GT-I9305)
The GT-I9305 is the LTE variant of the Galaxy S3 that has an Exynos Quad-Core chipset with 2 Gigs of RAM, it is sold in countries that have 4G LTE network capabilities excluding North America. The variant hasn’t been talked about getting the android 4.4.2 update till date, not even on a negative side if not positive to start. The double amount of RAM is essentially something to consider here but the same Exynos Chip as the GT-I9300 might be a an issue after all. Any regional divisions of Samsung have not commented on whether GT-I9305 will be provided with an update to Android 4.4.2 and to tell you the truth it seems that it will miss it too, if the GT-I9300 does, though I hope I am wrong.
Conclusion
Samsung hasn’t been really the best in updating it’s flagship smartphones to latest android updates, the Galaxy S3 was launched with ICS 4.0 and till date has only received one major update to JellyBean 4.1.2. The latest android 4.3 update that Samsung released brought more problems then it solved for the users, due to the numerous bugs it had Samsung was eventually forced to pull it away and release it after further testing (There are still some Bugs). The Galaxy S3 is almost 2 years old now and there are a lot of customers who are holding on to it, but Samsung’s ignorance to provide an official statement isn’t just helping anyone. We hope to see an update or a official confirmation from Samsung soon, so that this chaos finally ends. We hope to hear your views in the comments section below.
