Samsung will not upgrade 3G Galaxy S3 or Galaxy S3 Mini past Jelly Bean
Some unfortunate news for those of you who might own the 3G-only version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini. The South Korean company has announced that the devices will not be receiving KitKat, as their 1GB of RAM isn’t enough to provide a quality user experience with the latest software.
Many folks will no doubt be quick to point to Google’s proclamation that KitKat can run just fine on a device with just 512MB of RAM, but Google wasn’t talking about firmware that had tons of carrier and OEM customization sitting on top. As we all know, TouchWiz is one of the heaviest skins out there and all the changes made in the most recent upgrades are likely too much for 1GB of RAM to handle.
To be clear, this is only affecting those with the 3G versions of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S3 Mini, as the LTE version came equipped with 2GB of RAM and is still in line for a KitKat upgrade of its own.
Those are the breaks of sticking with older hardware. You can either upgrade, or look to the after-market development community to get your phone up to speed with the latest Android has to offer (there’s a pretty big treasure trove of stuff waiting for you at the root section of AndroidForums.com). Let us know if any of you are affected by this in the comments below!
[via Unwired View]