Samsung’s once-flagship Galaxy S8 series turned three following the recent launch of the Galaxy S20 line. While the company usually commits to two years of regular OS and security updates for its high-end models, the releases start to get a bit more infrequent after that. That's just what's happening now to the manufacturer's 2017 Galaxy flagship.

Android Pie was the last major software bump to arrive for the Galaxy S8 and S8+, but the two had still been receiving monthly security fixes until recently. Now Samsung's moving them to down to quarterly updates.

Joining the S8 are some newer Samsung models that will also receive critical fixes every three months: the Galaxy A71 5G, A41, A31, A11, M11, and the Tab S6 Lite. These devices were never part of the monthly cycle, which is reserved only for Samsung’s premium products.

Additionally, the manufacturer has demoted the J7 Prime2 to ‘other regular security updates,’ making its situation even iffier, and has dropped support for the 2016 Galaxy J7 entirely. After this reshuffle, the monthly tier is now occupied by the Galaxy Note8 and newer flagships, as well as the two foldables, and a handful of enterprise models. The 2017 Note should be next major model in line for this downgrade, likely followed by the Galaxy S9.

Source: Samsung