The Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3 will be among the first

Oct 14, 2014 12:47 GMT  ·  By

We’re less than a month away from the official launch of the next major version of Android, namely Android L, and Samsung is ready to start deploying the Android 4.4.4 KitKat update for some of the smartphones it released in the last year or so.

It’s a bit strange that Samsung decided to bring some its most powerful smartphones to Android 4.4.4 KitKat right when Google readies the Android L.

A supposedly Samsung document that contains an Android roadmap for 13 Samsung smartphones has been recently published by JustAboutPhones blog site.

While we can’t vouch for the accuracy of the document, it’s worth noting that neither of the handsets in this list runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat operating system, so there’s a high chance that Samsung indeed plans to bring them to this version of the platform.

The first two smartphones that are supposed to receive the Android 4.4.4 KitKat update this month are Samsung Galaxy S5 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Samsung will offer the update for two Galaxy S5 variants, SM-G900I and SM-G900F, as well as Galaxy Note 3 and its LTE counterpart.

All 13 smartphones should receive the update by the end of this year

The document also mentions that work on Android 4.4.4 KitKat update for Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3 has already been completed and it will be delivered sometime in October.

On the other hand, the same update for Samsung Galaxy S4, Galaxy S4 LTE and Galaxy Note 3 Neo is in final testing and is expected to be pushed to these smartphones in November.

The next six Samsung smartphones scheduled to receive the Android 4.4.4 KitKat update will probably get the update by the end of this year as well.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Duos, Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Duos, Samsung Galaxy Grand 2, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Samsung Galaxy Note 2 LTE have a “Pending” status, which means the update hasn’t been completed yet.

However, the South Korean company has given all these smartphones an ETA for November, which means Samsung hopes to be ready with Android 4.4.4 KitKat by that time.

Obviously, given the staged nature of the rollout, Android 4.4.4 KitKat may arrive at a much later data in some countries.

Although it’s nice to receive a new update that potentially should improve performance and fix some bugs, we can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to just get these smartphones directly to Android L.