Galaxy S20 Begins Android 11 One UI 3.0 Stable Rollout

It is quite the holiday gift that Samsung is giving its loyal fans and customers. Given how it handled its beta program for the One UI 3.0 experience, it was pretty much expected that a stable version would be available sooner rather than later. Few, however, expected that "sooner" would actually mean now but that is exactly the surprise that greeted Galaxy S20 owners on Verizon when that update, which brings with it Android 11, suddenly become available with pretty much no warning or announcement.

Compared to the very first One UI release, version 3.0 is more evolutionary than revolutionary. It refines Samsung's custom Android design and experience to be more in line with current trends as well as new practices or features from Android itself. What is perhaps more significant is that it also updates phones to Android 11, bringing them to the latest OS release.

An earlier report revealed Samsung's timetable for rolling out the stable version of One UI 3.0 to its supported phones. Unsurprisingly, the Galaxy S20 series is first in line this December but few expected it to actually begin immediately. Whether or not Verizon just accidentally pushed out the update is still uncertain but, so far, it hasn't pulled it out either.

January 2021 will see the majority of Samsung's flagships get their turn, with the Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy Note 10, and Galaxy S10 getting the update that month. The foldable Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip will likewise get One UI 3.0 by then but the original Galaxy Z Flip will have to wait until February.

It's not all good news, though, especially for older and less premium devices. The next few months of 2021 all the way to August will see the update rollout to select Galaxy A and Galaxy M phones as well as Galaxy S tablets from 2019 onwards. Unfortunately, no such commitment has been made for the Galaxy S9, Galaxy Note 9, or Galaxy Tab S4, all launched in 2018.