Umm, excuse me? I certainly do love the corporate world. The Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy SÂ III Mini, like some of Samsung’s devices, have shipped with slightly different hardware specs depending on the locale. The Galaxy S III in Europe got the Exynos processor but only 1GB of RAM, where as here in the states we got the Qualcomm processor and 2GB of RAM. This flip-flop of hardware matching poses problems for future updates to the devices Android versions. With U.S. variants seeing KitKat, more questions arose. Like, how did the U.S. see an update before the international version. Seriously, it is usually the other way around. Thankfully we have folks like those found at SamMobile who are all about getting to the bottom of things like this and boy is the response a doozy.
“In order to facilitate an effective upgrade on the Google platform, various hardware performances such as the memory (RAM, ROM, etc.), multi-tasking capabilities, and display must meet certain technical expectations. The Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions come equipped with 1GB RAM, which does not allow them to effectively support the platform upgrade. As a result of the Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions’ hardware limitation, they cannot effectively support the platform upgrade while continuing to provide the best consumer experience. Samsung has decided not to roll-out the KitKat upgrade to Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions, and the KitKat upgrade will be available to the Galaxy S3 LTE version as the device’s 2GB RAM is enough to support the platform upgrade.†– Samsung Mobile UK
As SamMobile points out, as will I, KitKat is very capable of running on 512MB of RAM. That would be the slimmed down more efficient KitKat, not the Samsung TouchWiz filled KitKat. While the International Galaxy S III COULD handle it, it would require Samsung to pull out a lot of their software (Bloatware) to do so. We all know that won’t happen, at least not on the aging S III or S III Mini.
We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you want to get your International variant of the Galaxy S III past Android 4.3 you should probably look to rooting it and see what the community is up to.
Source: SamMobile
