OnePlus beat Samsung to being the first manufacturer to roll out the Android 13 update to its flagship aside from Google when the Chinese company updated the OnePlus 10 Pro to the newest Android version.
When finally Samsung pushed the One UI 5 update to the Galaxy S22 series in late October, they quickly followed it up with rollouts to the Galaxy S21 series, S20 series, Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Flip 4 and also to the midrange champ the Galaxy A53.
Keeping up the pace in the quick rollout, the South Korean company has now become the first manufacturer to run Android 13 on a tablet, following the Galaxy Tab S8 series getting the One UI 5 update earlier this week.
At the time of writing, only the 5G models of the Galaxy Tab S8 are getting the stable Android 13 update in European countries. For those interested in the firmware versions, the base Galaxy Tab S8 has the firmware version X706BXXU2BVK4 while the Galaxy Tab S8+ and Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra have X806BXXU2BVK4 and X906BXXU2BVK4 respectively.
To check whether your Galaxy Tab S8 is ready to receive the update, head over to Settings > Software update and tap Download and install if the update is showing up. If it is not showing up, give it a few days or weeks, depending on your location.
Aside from the newer OS, the update also includes the November 2022 security patch which fixes quite a number of privacy and security vulnerabilities in Galaxy smartphones and tablets, including a bug that allowed attackers to access privileged APIs using the StorageManagerService function.
While Android 12L introduced massive multitasking improvements to tablets and other devices with big form factors, Android 13 does not bring any drastic changes, instead features better Material You integration with more options in the Colour Palette for greater customization and smoother system animations among other improvements which we have previously looked at.
Samsung is already king in the Android space in terms of rolling out updates to older phones and security patches, which in turn lengthen their lifespan. The quick rollout of One UI 5 to all flagship devices and even the budget-oriented Galaxy A53 only adds to this.
Not to mention there are planned upgrades to even more Galaxy devices in the remaining few weeks of 2022 and early 2023 which encompasses entry-level Samsung smartphones. This raises the bar for other manufacturers in the Android space to keep up or continue losing customers to a company that offers better support once you have bought their device.
