Samsung’s latest foldable flagships, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, boast impressive specs and innovative features like built-in artificial intelligence, but these premium devices appear to be missing a feature that’s becoming increasingly common on Android phones: seamless updates.

Introduced by Google nearly a decade ago, Continuous Updates allow Android phones to download and install updates in the background, minimizing downtime. Users can continue using their phones while the update is installed on a separate system partition.

In contrast, traditional updates require a full reboot and force users away from their devices for several minutes. While this may not be a deal-breaker for everyone, rolling updates do offer a smoother experience, especially for those who frequently update their phones with security patches.

Samsung’s Galaxy A55, which is due to launch in early 2024, has become the first Samsung phone to accept rolling updates, raising hopes that the feature will become standard across the company’s entire lineup. However, early tests have shown that SamMobile using developer tools show that Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 do not have this support.

The lack of seamless updates from the factory means they likely won’t be added later. Implementing seamless updates requires a two-part system setup, and changing this on existing devices could lead to stability issues – a risk Samsung is unlikely to take.

The software size could be to blame for this oversight. Galaxy flagships tend to have bloated software when compared to their mid-range counterparts.

The A55 firmware is reported to weigh around 8GB, while the Z Fold 5 and S24 Ultra reportedly have firmware sizes of 14GB and 16GB respectively. This additional software might not leave enough space for a dedicated update partition on the Fold 6 and Flip 6.

With a seven-year software update commitment, users can expect to download multiple firmware updates for the Z Fold 6 and Flip 6. While these updates will bring security patches and bug fixes, they will unfortunately require the traditional reboot process, which will cause downtime on some devices for days or minutes at a time.