[theshrike79]

"Now" being the operative word here.

4+ years ago this wasn't the case and I watched people get burned by shitty support multiple times - all the while my iOS devices chugged along. Even flagship phones could get 0-1 official OS level updates.

Oh, and check the fine print on those promised "updates". IIRC the Samsung one guarantees "security updates" for 5 years - basically they'll backport fixes for high enough severity CVEs to older phones. You won't be getting 5 Android OS updates on them.

I'm willing to bet actual money that no more than a half dozen Android models you can buy _today_ with Android 12 on them will get Android 16 as an official update. On the other hand I can pretty much guarantee that the iPhone 13 being sold today will still get iOS 20.