Android 10 Report Card keeps Pixel, OnePlus on top, Samsung’s first non-failing grade

Ben Schoon | Mar 11 2020 - 8:42 am PT

Due to the open nature of Android, updates are generally a fairly big issue when looking at the ecosystem as a whole. As Android 11 starts preparations for release later this year, a report card for Android 10 shows how companies like OnePlus and Samsung are leaving the competition behind.

In its yearly analysis of Android updates, Computer World usually finds only bad news. Despite Google’s efforts to make things easier and easier on OEMs, they just keep slowing down and not caring about giving their customers the updates they deserve. In 2019, though, Android Pie’s report card had a couple of bright spots and now, in 2020, Android 10 has even better news.

Cutting right to chase, the good news with Android 10 is that the biggest OEM of them all — Samsung — has improved considerably. For the first time ever, Samsung earned a grade better than a big fat F. This time, rather, the company managed a D+ (68%) thanks to its accelerated schedule of pushing Android 10 to its S10 and Note 10 flagships, as well as to its year-old S9 and Note 9 devices. That’s in comparison to an F (37%) from last year.

Samsung still has a long way to go before its results are truly commendable, but over the past three years, the company has gone from barely trying to at least bother with some effort. That effort, though, still took over 100 days to release a single update after Google released Android 10, so needless to say there’s a lot of room for improvement. As Computer World says, Samsung can and should do better.

What about the highest in the class? As usual, Google’s Pixel devices took the top A grade with 100% as you’d expect from the company making these updates in the first place. OnePlus also saw an improvement on Android 10’s report card compared to Pie’s with a B (85%) versus a C (74%).

Google — A (100%)
OnePlus — B (85%)
Samsung — D+ (68%)
LG — F (43%)
HTC — F (0%)
Motorola — F (0%)

How about the rest of the class? It’s F’s across the board. LG managed a 43% grade for taking 129 days to push an Android 10 update to its LG G8, but it hasn’t supported the LG G7 at all. Even looking at the company’s V-series, results are no better. Rounding things out, HTC (lol) and Motorola both managed zeros for not pushing out any Android 10 upgrades. Sony isn’t a formal inclusion on the list, but its speedy Android 10 updates would have put it between OnePlus and Samsung.

So, at least things are a little better, right?