Updated Nov. 29 with a new report into Samsung’s latest updates.
Is your Samsung Galaxy smartphone on the list for a critical new update? You can check here. If it’s not, you should consider an upgrade. With the recent train of Android security alerts, it’s a bad idea to run a phone that has fallen off support.
There are upwards of a billion Android devices no longer receiving security updates, patches for critical vulnerabilities found and fixed. Many more phones are only getting these updates quarterly. You need monthly updates. Anything less puts you at risk.
Samsung’s update for November really is critical, with dozens of fixes from both Google and Samsung to ensure your phone stays protected. Per SammyFans, the “Galaxy S23 has joined the S24 and S25” is now receiving the update.
“Samsung revealed earlier this month the details of its November patch. The complete package includes 45 improvements for Galaxy devices. Meanwhile, your Galaxy S23 phone is eligible for 34 patches; 11 Exynos patches are excluded.”
Later than expected, Samsung “finally expanded the November 2025 security update to the users of Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra in the global market” last week. This is unusual. The latest flagship should have been updated much earlier in the month.
The good news for Galaxy S25 users is they can update their phones seamlessly. This negates the need for a laborious restart, with the phone unusable while it resets. The seamless update process — standard on other Android for years — enables most of this to take place in the background, limiting the amount of time the phone goes dark.
This makes for some grumpy users. “It wasn’t until 2025 that seamless updates became standard on Samsung’s flagships,” SamMobile’s Abhijeet Mishra says. “And that’s why my daily driver, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, feels incomplete every time an update drops, especially after using the Galaxy S25 Ultra.”
Each month, hundreds of millions of Samsung users who don’t have the latest S25 flagship “have to stop what they’re doing, reboot the phone, and wait for everything to install. It’s not the end of the world, but it is a step backwards.”
If you haven’t yet updated your smartphone, go to Settings > Software update > Download and install.
Samsung is running late this month, bumping up against November’s month-end before what is expected to be a busy period, with the tail-end of One UI 8 and the new One UI 8.5 Beta mixing with the usual monthly update schedule.
“Samsung released several new software updates in the fourth week of November 2025,” SammyFans reports. “Galaxy phones and tablets grabbed One UI-based software updates, while smartwatches have received One UI Watch-based OTAs.”
The website also highlights what needs to be done before the year-end. “November is about to end, and December is going to be a very busy month for Samsung. Rumors suggest the One UI 8.5 Beta Program may be kicked off. The first phase is expected to go live for Galaxy S25 users on December 8.”
The pressure is on Samsung to tidy up its lagging software updates given the news that “Apple is set to dethrone Samsung in shipments for the first time in 14 years and will maintain the top spot through 2029.” That’s according to Counterpoint.
Samsung is in a difficult position when it comes to Apple, given its reliance on Google for an OS that can compete with iOS. That’s not new, of course. But what is new is Google’s increasing focus on Pixel, which is the only Android device from an OEM that controls both hardware and software — just like Apple.