No KitKat for Samsung Galaxy S3 owners in the UK

Galaxy S3

We've got some disappointing news for those S3 owners who've been holding out with their fingers crossed for an update to Android 4.4, as KitKat is simply not going to happen on the international version of the Galaxy S3 (and the S3 Mini).

Previous rumours had indicated that UK owners of the S3 were going to get KitKat, speculation which was underlined by the fact that over in the US, the upgrade has been confirmed and is indeed about to roll out.

However, there's an unfortunate difference between the US and international S3, namely the amount of RAM on board, and this is the crucial sticking point. The US version has an ample 2GB, but the international edition has half of that.

Now, 1GB should still be enough to run KitKat smoothly -- after all, Android 4.4 is where Google took strides to make its mobile OS less demanding of phone hardware. But of course the problem isn't just running KitKat -- the S3 also has to cope with Samsung's overlaid TouchWiz interface, and that's the straw which breaks the proverbial camel's back. Apparently Samsung can't get that combination running smoothly enough on the international S3.

This news came from Sam Mobile, which received an official statement from Samsung to say: "As a result of the Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions' hardware limitation, they cannot effectively support the platform upgrade while continuing to provide the best consumer experience. Samsung has decided not to roll-out the KitKat upgrade to Galaxy S3 and S3 mini 3G versions, and the KitKat upgrade will be available to the Galaxy S3 LTE version as the device's 2GB RAM is enough to support the platform upgrade”.

And that's the one positive piece of news here -- if you've got an LTE version of the S3 with 2GB of RAM, then you will get Android 4.4. Otherwise, if you want KitKat, then you'll need to consider an upgrade to the S5.

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