Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One Google Edition – Just How Much "Nexus-like" Are They?

As many of you should already know by now, last month Samsung has announced the Galaxy S4 Google Edition, a vanilla Android variant of the original model which will be sold in the US exclusively through the Play Store. A few weeks later, HTC has announced the same; an HTC One Google Edition will be available off-contract via Google's online store.

The idea of these handsets is that, although they offer less software features due to the fact that the TouchWiz and Sense 5 UIs are being removed, they do offer a Nexus-like experience in return. Initially, since both the S4 and the One Google Edition are being sold through the Play Store and they arrive with vanilla Android, pretty much everyone assumed that Google will be the one who will handle future software updates. The theory was that, future OTA releases will arrive on these gadgets just as fast as they arrive on regular Nexus smartphones. Unfortunately, that may not be the case at all.

According to the latest reports, Google will indeed supply future Android builds to the original manufacturers, but the OEMs themselves will be the ones responsible for maintenance of all the drivers and kernels, and putting the pieces together for rolling-out the final version of a given update. In other words, future software updates for the HTC One and SGS4 Google Edition will not be released by the search engine giant, but by Samsung and HTC themselves.

Furthermore, Google will not host factory OS images for these two smartphones, and it will be up to the OEMs to do so, if they desire. Additionally, proprietary binaries will not be hosted by Google, and releasing them will once again be up to HTC and Samsung. This may very well mean that neither the Galaxy S4 Google Edition nor the HTC One Google Edition will be supported in AOSP. Although it's not out of the question, chances are very slim.

So, to sum things up, Google Edition smartphones are going to deliver a Nexus-like experience when it comes down to the actual operating system and its UI. As established before, there are not going to be any bells and whistles added to the original Android user interface, but as far as future software updates go, there's no guarantee that these smartphones will be updated just as fast as Google's Nexus handsets will be. It pretty much depends on HTC and Samsung. With that in mind, future OTA releases could very well land on these Google Edition gadgets just a few days after the Nexus line-up will receive them, or it could take weeks or even months. Both OEMs can also pull the plug at any given time and decided not to support these smartphones anymore.

But, let's keep an optimistic attitude. Hopefully both HTC and Samsung will work side-by-side with Google to offer a good experience to Google Edition owners. I suppose we'll get our answer as soon as a new big software update will be released by Google.

Would you still be interested in buying one of these gadgets? Have you done so already? Just as a reminder, both smartphones have just been made available for purchase on the Play Store, alongside a shipping date of July 9th.

Source: Anandtech
Via: Android Police