Other carriers have also discussed their release plans for Samsung’s handsets, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, but given the messy overall schedule and the difficulty of navigating all the information, users are advised to just stick to the announcements made by their respective carrier.
Some users have also been discussing the possibility of getting an update on some of the older devices by the manufacturer – such as the Galaxy S5 – but at this point it’s not very clear what Samsung’s plans are in this regard.
The company typically doesn’t extend their update support too far back, especially when they have new flagships already on the market, so owners of those older devices are most likely out of luck.
On the other hand, there is always the option of using a custom ROM, something which has always been a good alternative for Android users. Samsung’s devices are particularly popular among ROM developers, so there is no shortage of different OS versions that can be installed should the user desire to do so. Of course, there is always a small risk of bricking the device through this procedure, but modern tools have addressed this in various ways and it’s currently quite safe to flash a custom ROM as long as the user follows the instructions carefully. In some cases, the results in terms of performance and usability can be quite impressive too.