As a long-term Samsung user, I've witnessed first-hand the Hollywood-style comeback Samsung has made in terms of how its phones get updates. Gone are the days of waiting almost a year for significant version changes, or being several months behind on security patches. Not only have Samsung devices been receiving updates faster than ever before, in some cases, Samsung has even beaten Google to the punch. It's now done so again, with Samsung starting its rollout of May's security patch for the S20 series.

Reports of this update first started surfacing a little earlier in the week. The changelog here is a little sparse, touching only on security issues; previous updates, including one I received on Monday for the S20 Ultra, talked of improvements to the camera. While we're now only looking at general security fixes and performance enhancements, this new build does weigh in at 170MB, which is a bit more than we'd expect for a plain-old security patch. Time will tell if there's anything else buried in this update, but as it stands, a release this early is still incredibly impressive.

Not only is this the first OEM to start delivering this month's bulletin, but these are also the first few phones, full stop. Google's Pixels are still gathering dust with the April patch, after all. Exaggeration aside, it's praiseworthy of Samsung to truly change things around from the days of TouchWiz and set a new standard with One UI. So far there are reports of this update appearing in several countries, so it shouldn't be long before it reaches your device.

UPDATE: 2020/05/01 12:15pm PDT BY ZACHARY KEW-DENNISS

As well as the S20 series, Samsung has started rolling out the May security patch to the Galaxy Fold and Note10 series. Not satisfied with beating Google to the punch with its newest range of devices, Samsung has also managed to update some of last year’s phones too. Hopefully, the Galaxy S10 series won’t be far behind.

UPDATE: 2020/05/06 8:38am PDT BY ZACHARY KEW-DENNISS

Samsung is on fire this month, with the May security bulletin now rolling out to the Z Flip, S10 series, and the more affordable A50. While it shouldn't be a surprise to see the Z Flip and S10 follow the S20 so closely, it's refreshing to see Samsung update the A50 in such a timely manner. Outside of Google's Pixel 3a, most mid-range phones are often weeks behind the flagships.

The update for the S10 also benefits from an updated bootloader this month, although it isn't certain what fixes and improvements this will bring. So far, the rollout has reached unlocked models in the US and some European countries. As for the Z Flip and A50, things seem limited to European locals for now.

Source: Reddit: (1), (2), RPRNA, XDA: (1), (2), (3), SamMobile

Thanks: Vinc, K01D57331