Samsung just turned one of its most popular flagship lines into legacy hardware.
Five years after launch, the Galaxy S21, S21+, and S21 Ultra have officially reached the end of the road for both Android version upgrades and security patches. No more monthly updates, no quarterly patches, nothing.
If you’re still daily-driving one of these, that’s not just a line in a changelog. It’s a real security and longevity decision point.
The S21 Got the Old Deal, Not the New Promise
Samsung’s current flagships are getting seven years of updates – seven major Android versions and seven years of security patches. That’s a huge shift in how long a Galaxy can realistically stay in service.
The Galaxy S21 series never had that contract.
Launched in January 2021, the S21, S21+, and S21 Ultra shipped with a promise of four major Android OS updates and five years of security patches. Samsung has now delivered on that: those five years are up, and this trio is falling off the support list.
On paper, that’s Samsung honoring the deal. In practice, it creates a pretty sharp divide in the lineup. If you bought into the S21 series, you were the last wave of buyers before Samsung decided long-term support was a headline feature instead of fine print.
No More Security Patches: Why That Actually Matters
Security patches aren’t just checkbox fodder in update trackers. Once a phone stops getting them, every new Android or kernel vulnerability that’s discovered is a potential permanent hole in your device.
If you use your phone for banking, 2FA, email, or anything remotely sensitive (so, basically everyone), the lack of ongoing security updates is a real problem long-term. It doesn’t mean your S21 instantly becomes unsafe overnight, but the risk curve starts to bend in the wrong direction from here.
This is especially important because you’re not just exposed to Android-level flaws. Browsers, apps, and sometimes even firmware-level bugs rely on OS and vendor patches to stay locked down. When those stop, the burden shifts to you.
Is It Time to Replace Your Galaxy S21?
The short answer: if you care about security and you’re planning to keep your phone for another couple of years, it’s probably time to move on.
The S21 hardware is still perfectly usable for a lot of people. Performance, cameras, and displays were high-end in 2021 and aren’t magically outdated three updates later. But without security patches, you’re now trading acceptable performance for growing risk.
The source recommendation is pretty straightforward: if you want to stay in the Samsung flagship ecosystem, the Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra are the obvious landing spots. They’re in the same line, and they come with that new promise of seven Android OS updates and seven years of security support.
Why the S25 Line Makes Sense as the Upgrade Path
If you’ve been on a Galaxy S21, you already know the ecosystem: Samsung’s UI decisions, its app suite, the integration with wearables and TVs. Jumping to something like a Galaxy S25 keeps all of that familiar.
And there’s a timing angle here too. The S25 family is already on the market, and the source suggests they should see solid discounts in a few weeks when their successors launch. That’s the usual flagship shuffle: new models hit, last-gen drops in price, and suddenly the value proposition looks a lot better.
So if you’re still holding an S21 Ultra, for example, upgrading to a discounted S25 Ultra means:
- You stay in the Samsung flagship lane you’re used to.
- You reset your software clock and get seven more years of Android and security updates.
- You avoid running a phone that’s effectively frozen in time from a security perspective.
You’re not just getting fresher hardware; you’re buying into a much longer support story than what you got in 2021.
Four Years of Android, Five Years of Patches: Fair or Bare Minimum?
From a pure contract standpoint, Samsung did what it said it would do with the Galaxy S21 series: four Android version updates and five years of security fixes.
In 2021, that was a competitive offer. The problem is that the bar has moved. Now Samsung’s newest flagships get seven OS versions and seven years of security patches. If you bought an S21 thinking you were future-proofed, it’s hard not to look at that jump and feel like you just missed the era when long-term support actually became a priority.
Still, calling the S21 a bad deal retroactively would be dishonest. It delivered what was promised. The bigger takeaway is how fast Android’s update story is evolving, and how brutally that can age devices the moment they drop off the update schedule.
What S21 Owners Should Actually Do Next
If you own a Galaxy S21, S21+, or S21 Ultra right now, here’s the practical breakdown:
- If you keep sensitive data on your phone and plan to keep it for years more, start planning an upgrade. The S25 line is the cleanest, simplest path.
- If you’re very light-use, mostly offline, and treat the phone as a secondary device, you can keep using it, but you should understand you’re doing it without a safety net.
- If you were thinking about squeezing one more year out of it, those upcoming S25 discounts might make the decision easier.
The S21 series helped bridge the gap to Samsung’s new seven-year update era. Now it’s on the wrong side of that bridge. Whether that pushes you to upgrade now or later comes down to your risk tolerance and how much you value long-term support.
But in 2026, running a security-stale flagship as your primary phone is a harder sell than it used to be.
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