How Many Years of Updates Does Each Brand Promise? (2026)

How long a phone keeps getting updates is decided almost entirely by who made it — and in 2026 the gap between the best and worst brands is enormous, running from eight years at the top to barely two at the bottom. But before the table, the single most important warning: the promise depends on the exact model, not the logo. A 2025 Samsung flagship is supported into 2032; a 2021 Samsung is already dead. So treat the brand as a starting point, then check the specific phone.

These figures track each brand's current commitment for new phones. The number that matters most is the security window, so that's what we lead with.

The leaders: 7–8 years

• Fairphone — the outright champion, officially committing to 8 years of security support (the Fairphone 6 runs to 2033), aiming for up to ten, on a fully repairable, modular design.
• Samsung — 7 years of OS and security updates on the Galaxy S24 generation onward; even recent A-series budget phones get six.
• Google — 7 years on the Pixel 8 generation onward, and crucially the cheaper a-series (a Pixel 9a) gets the same seven as a Pixel Pro.
• Honor — joined the top tier in 2025 with 7 years of OS upgrades and security on its flagship Magic series.
• Nothing — the Phone (3) carries 7 years of security patches (with five OS upgrades), quietly matching the giants.

The strong middle: 5–6 years

• OnePlus — current flagships get four OS upgrades and 6 years of security.
• Oppo and Realme — both recently jumped their flagship tiers to 6 years of security (Find X8 series; GT 7 series).
• Xiaomi and Vivo — flagship tiers commit to 5 years of security; lower tiers get noticeably less.
• Asus — up to 5 years of security on the ROG Phone line, though only about two OS upgrades.

The short windows: 3–4 years

• Motorola — 4 yearson Razr/Edge flagships, but budget moto g phones get far less and it's labeled an estimate, not a promise.
• Sony — about 4 years on recent Xperia flagships, trailing the mainstream leaders.
• Nubia and several others sit around three years in practice, without a firm numeric pledge.

The budget brands: short and often unstated

Nokia/HMD, TCL, ZTE, itel, and Catgenerally publish no firm commitment and deliver roughly one to three years of patches, tiered by model. These can still be sensible buys if you're replacing the phone soon — but they age out of safety fast, so check the exact figure.

Tecno and Infinix: strong hardware, no written promise

Tecno and Infinix (both owned by Transsion) deserve their own entry, because they are among the most-searched brands for update questions and among the least willing to answer them. Neither publishes a general update policy the way Samsung, Google or Xiaomi do. There is no page you can hold them to, and no per-model support document for most of their range.

What they do offer is tiered by product line and communicated piecemeal. Tecno's premium Camon 40 series was announced with up to three HiOS upgrades and up to five years of security patches, but mainstream Camon, Pova and Spark phones typically receive around two Android upgrades and roughly three years of patches, and the cheapest Spark models often get one. Infinix follows the same shape: the Zero, Note and GT lines get up to two upgrades and about three years, while the budget Hot and Smart lines get less, sometimes nothing beyond launch. Because none of this is committed in writing, every Tecno and Infinix date on this site is labelled as an estimate derived from observed patch behaviour rather than a promise.

There is a second issue worth knowing about, and it is one no update can fix. Both brands frequently omit NFC from phones that otherwise look well specified — the Infinix Note 50s is a good example, with an excellent AMOLED panel, a stabilised camera and a capable 5G chip, and no tap-to-pay hardware at all. Several of their most attractive models are also 4G-only despite 2025 and 2026 release dates. Check both before buying, because they are permanent limitations rather than software gaps.

None of this makes them bad phones. Tecno and Infinix routinely deliver curved AMOLED panels, wireless charging and high refresh rates at prices no major brand matches, and if you are knowingly buying a two-to-three year phone that is a reasonable trade. It becomes a bad trade when the buyer assumes the phone will last as long as a Samsung at the same price, because measured per month of safe use, the Samsung is very often cheaper.

Lava: the budget brand that does publish

Lavais the interesting counter-example, and a useful illustration that publishing a short window is more valuable to a buyer than publishing nothing. With the Agni 3 it introduced a formal pledge of three Android upgrades and four years of security patches, and it states shorter windows for its cheaper lines — the Play Ultra at two upgrades and three years, the Bold 2 and Blaze AMOLED 2 at one upgrade and two years.

Two years is genuinely short. But an official two-year window you can plan around is worth more than an unwritten three-year estimate that may not hold, because it lets you calculate the real cost of the phone before you buy rather than discovering it later. Lava also ships a clean, near-stock Android build with no preinstalled third-party apps and no advertising inside system apps, which in this segment is a meaningful difference. Its consistent weakness is the same as Infinix's: most Lava phones, including the flagship Agni 3, omit NFC entirely.

How to verify a support claim yourself

You do not have to take any brand's word for it, or ours. Three checks cover almost every case.

Find the manufacturer's own security page. Samsung, Google, Xiaomi, OnePlus and Oppo all maintain public pages listing which models are on monthly, quarterly or biannual patch cadence. That list is more informative than the headline policy, because a phone moving from monthly to quarterly is an early signal that it is entering the back half of its supported life. We link the relevant document on every brand page.

Check the phone's current patch level. On Android, open Settings, then About phone or System, and look for the security patch date. That single date tells you more than any policy: it is the month of the last fix the phone actually received. A gap of two or three months is normal on mid-range hardware; a gap beyond six months usually means the phone has stopped being maintained regardless of what its theoretical window says.

Count from the release date, not from today. Support windows run from when the model launched, so a phone that has been on shelves for two years has already spent two years of its allowance. This is the mistake that costs buyers the most money, because heavily discounted phones are discounted precisely because their remaining window is short.

So which brand should you actually buy?

If longevity is your priority and budget allows, Google and Samsung are the straightforward answers, and they now extend those commitments well down their ranges — a Pixel a-series or a Samsung A-series phone gets six or seven years at mid-range prices, which is the single best longevity-per-dollar available today. Fairphone beats both on paper at eight years and adds genuine repairability, at the cost of ordinary hardware and limited availability.

Below that, the honest advice is to buy on the specific model rather than the badge. Oppo's A-series occasionally offers four years of patches at prices where two is normal. Xiaomi splits sharply between its Xiaomi-badged flagships and its Redmi and Poco lines. And if you are looking at Tecno, Infinix or Lava, buy them for what they are — excellent hardware value on a two-to-three year horizon — rather than as phones you intend to keep.

Apple: the one that publishes nothing

Apple is the odd one out: it publishes no policy years at all. Its only written commitment is a five-year legal minimum, but its track record is about 7 yearsin practice (the iPhone 6s and XS each passed seven). Because there's no promise to quote, we model every iPhone at release + 7 years and clearly label it an estimate.

The takeaway

Use the brand to narrow the field, then verify the model. A long-promising brand with an old phone can be worse than a mid-tier brand with a new one. To skip the guesswork entirely, see the longest-supported phones ranking, or read our data-driven State of Phone Software Support 2026report for how these promises play out across the whole market. And if it's specifically Android-vs-iPhone you're weighing, our 2026 head-to-head goes deeper.

Why the promise and the delivery are different things

Every figure above is what a manufacturer has committed to in writing. That is the right thing to shop on, but it is worth understanding what the promise does and does not guarantee.

It does not guarantee a cadence.A phone can be fully “in support” while receiving patches quarterly rather than monthly. In practice that means a vulnerability published in January may not reach your phone until April. Flagships from Google and Samsung are typically monthly; most mid-range and budget devices across every brand are quarterly.

It does not always apply to every model in a family. Brands frequently announce a headline policy alongside a flagship and then apply something shorter further down the range. This is why we record a specific date per phone rather than a policy per brand.

It counts from launch, not from your purchase. A five-year promise on a phone released two years ago is three years to you. Every date on this site is absolute for exactly this reason.

What changed the market

Android update commitments were stuck at two or three years for most of the last decade. Two things moved them. Google committed to seven years with the Pixel 8 in 2023 and Samsung matched it with the Galaxy S24, which reset expectations at the top of the market. And regulation arrived: the EU ecodesign rules that took effect in June 2025 require phones sold in the bloc to receive security updates for at least five years after the model leaves the market, alongside spare-part availability requirements.

The regulatory floor is why several brands that previously offered two or three years now advertise five or six. It is worth knowing that a five-year commitment from a brand that never offered one before may be compliance rather than conviction — the deadline is met, but the delivery track record does not exist yet.

How to check a specific phone rather than a brand

Brand policies are a useful shortlist tool and a poor final answer, because the phone in front of you may predate the current policy. A 2022 Samsung is on the old four-upgrade regime, not the new seven-year one, even though both say “Samsung” on the back.

Look up the actual model on our Longevity Tracker, which records a dated end-of-support figure and links the manufacturer document it came from for every phone we cover. If you are choosing between several, the longest-supported list ranks them directly, and dying soon shows what to avoid.