The Sony Xperia 1 II and Xperia 5 II will receive three OS upgrades; no Android 11 for the Xperia XZ3 or earlier models though

Android software support has been poor for years, with most devices left abandoned after two years. Usually, this corresponds with two OS upgrades and up to another year of security patch updates. There are a few outliers like Google and OnePlus, but generally two years is the extent of software support that the Android community has come to expect. That does not mean that people are happy with such limited software support though, especially when iPhones continue to be upgraded long after Android smartphones have been forgotten.

Positively, Samsung recently announced that it would be bringing three OS upgrades to its recent smartphones, and now a report claims that Sony has followed suit. Well, to a limited extent anyway. According to Android Next, Sony will upgrade the Xperia 1 II and the soon-to-be-announced Xperia 5 II through to Android 13. The former launched on Android 10, for reference, which Sony is also expected to pre-install on the Xperia 5 II.

However, these two are the only devices that will receive three OS upgrades. By contrast, software support for the Xperia 1, Xperia 5 and Xperia 10 II will cease as of Android 11. While this would afford these devices two OS upgrades, the Xperia 10, Xperia 10 Plus and Xperia XZ3 will receive even worse software support. Apparently, these devices will remain on Android 10, despite having been released running Android 9.0 Pie. Android Next did not mention the Xperia L4, but this is still yet to receive an OS upgrade. The same applies to the Xperia L3.

Overall, it is good to hear that Sony may be switching to three OS upgrades. However, we fail to see why this could not be extended to more than two devices.

Buy Xperia 1 II now on Amazon