4.5-year-old Samsung Galaxy S III gets Android 7.1 via CyanogenMod

The Samsung Galaxy S III, a 4.5-year-old smartphone, will receive a release of CyanogenMod 14.1, based on Android 7.1. The support of the manufacturer itself stopped three years ago with a firmware based on Android 4.3.

Users can download test versions of CM 14.1 for the popular old device from CyanogenMod’s site. Although the custom rom for Android devices often supports devices longer than the manufacturer itself, the arrival of Android 7.1 to the now outdated device is striking, notes Android Police. Support was stopped for a long time, until a few months ago, builds of CM13 with Android 6.0 appeared.

CyanogenMod can support devices longer, because it releases firmware as beta and does not have to do any testing. If Samsung wants to release an update, it must first have it tested. Then it has to create a stable version, which makes debugging time-consuming. Support for the Spring 2012 Galaxy S III ended with Android 4.3. That Android version came out in the summer of 2013.

The S III was one of the most popular smartphones of its time and included an OLED screen with 1280×720 pixels and a quad-core Exynos 4412-soc. The South Korean manufacturer sold fifty million copies within ten months. It is unknown how many are still in use.