Do you remember when the Samsung Galaxy S3 showed up at stores all over the country? It was about 3 years ago in May that Samsung brought the next generation to the S-series of smartphones. The phone came with some very impressive specs that got the mobile world buzzing very loudly and was one that could finally take on the iPhone from Apple. That was not the case in the end, however as Samsung was sent back to the drawing board where it came up with the S4, S5 and S6 since then.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 still has quite a following of loyal smartphone users that decided it was time to root the phone and add custom software to it in the meantime. The phone is still being sold in some emerging markets, but for the most part many of the budget mobile carriers have moved on to offer customers that Galaxy S4. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has been in line for the Android Lollipop software upgrade for a few months now, but that is only if you are loading customer ROM’s to the phone and know what you are doing.
Loading a custom ROM to a smartphone can be a pain of a process, but once it has been completed, you are likely to be freed from many of the restrictions that are put on smartphones today. Samsung is not going to be sending the Android Lollipop software to the Samsung Galaxy S3 owners, so they are going to have to take matters into their own hands.
Samsung officially announced that Android 4.4 KitKat was going to be the last official update from the company, but that has not stopped users on the XDA Developers Forum from posting possible updates for the phone. According to one report, there is one user that has the Android 5.1 Lollipop software ready for the Samsung Galaxy S3 owners and it can be downloaded as the Unofficial CM12.1 ROM.
If you have never downloaded “unofficial” software to your phone, it is not recommended unless you want to void the warranty and support for the phone, or brick it altogether and make it useless. If you are still willing to continue, there are some pre-requisites that you need before you can start. The new software is based on the ASOP, which means you need to unlock the bootloader first. This is the process that voids the warranty so please keep that in mind.