How long do Android phones support OS updates?

An operating system (OS) is software that communicates with the hardware, controlling the programs that run on your phone. Every time you do something as simple as going through social media, taking a photo, or watching a video, small electrical currents flow through the device's processor. These currents allow transistors (tiny switches inside your phone) to turn on or off. The combination of millions of transistors in one piece of silicon makes it possible to receive and send data, download and save photos, watch videos and navigate through the Internet, and much more. 

However, after a certain period, transistors get damaged due to the overflow of electrical currents. With every OS update, your phone improves efficiency and adds more features to enhance your experience. But this comes at a price; with every new task the processor has to perform, more electrical currents flow through the transistors. Hence, the processor inside your phone can handle a certain number of updates before the company stops updating it. 

Each phone company uses different processors from diverse manufacturers. For example, HiSilicon provides processors for Huawei, Qualcomm for Samsung, Google, and Nokia, and Apple manufactures its processors. Software efficiency and performance, hardware quality, and the integration of these characteristics make a phone last longer than others. 

Google Pixel phones, released in 2020, have Andriod updates for up to 3 years (2023). Pixel phones come with Qualcomm processors, which can receive a minimum of three Android versions during their lifetime. However, in some cases, these processors can receive even six updates, depending on customer and market demand. For example, Samsung phones also come with Qualcomm processors, and selected phones released in 2019 will receive security updates for a minimum of four years. On the other hand, Huawei used to support their phones for a minimum of three years with HiSilicon chips. Nevertheless, the last version of HarmonyOS, which Huawei claims is based on microkernel technology and not on Andriod, Huawei phones could support OS updates for much longer.