Samsung drops software support for the Galaxy Note 9, moves Note 10 to quarterly schedule

Ben Schoon | Sep 7 2022 - 7:20 am PT

Over four years after it first hit the market, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9 has officially been pulled from the company’s support schedule, meaning software updates have likely come to an end.

Galaxy Note 9 loses software updates

Samsung maintains a website that covers every smartphone and tablet currently supported for software updates, and details how often those devices are set to be updated. This week, Samsung has updated that page to include some recent releases, such as the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Flip 4, which get monthly updates, as well as the new Galaxy A23, which gets quarterly updates.

But also changed this time around is that Samsung has removed the Galaxy Note 9 from this page, which means that the device will no longer be receiving software updates.

The Galaxy Note 9 first launched in August of 2018, almost four years ago to the day. The device was especially notable as it was one of Samsung’s first smartphones with 512GB of storage, added Bluetooth features to the S Pen, and was one of the first Android smartphones to start at $999. The Galaxy Note 9 was also the last Galaxy Note with support for a microSD card, which is one reason many still consider it the last “true” Note that lived up to the device’s power user reputation.

The Note 9 launched before Samsung was known for relatively fast and long-term software support, which the company excels at today. When it launched, the Galaxy Note 9 was only expected to get Android updates for a couple of years, with perhaps some security patches beyond that. Note 9 also just barely missed the cutoff for Samsung’s extended software support, which had guaranteed four years of security updates. That said, the Note 9 did end up with nearly four years of support, with its last update arriving in mid-August with the July 2022 security patch that first arrived on other Samsung smartphones. There’s always a chance of a future security patch, but nothing is guaranteed anymore.

The Galaxy Note 9 ended its major Android update support with Android 10.

Galaxy Note 10 series moved to quarterly updates

Alongside the removal of the Galaxy Note 9 series, Samsung has also shuffled up a few other parts of its work scope.

Most notably, the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+, as well as their 5G variants, are no longer eligible for monthly security updates. Rather, they’ll now get updates on a quarterly basis, around four times per year.

Samsung has also moved the Galaxy A01 Core, M31s, and Galaxy Tab S7+ to a biannual update schedule. Finally, the Galaxy Tab A 10.5 (2018) and Galaxy Tab S4 join the Note 9 in dropping off of Samsung’s schedule entirely.