So just gonna say that they weren’t always the best but most people installed custom ROMs for future updates. What I do praise them for is actually listening to their customers and actually providing better update and better future support, even for their low to mid range phones. Honestly, the biggest thing holding Samsung back (in my opinion,) is Android. I would love for them to fully commit to an Android-fork or custom Linux-based OS to compete with Android. Then maybe they might get software that actually makes their camera hardware worth a shit
Samsung is arguably one of the worst when it comes to custom ROMs, especially in Europe where they relied more on Exynos (although that has declined over the last few years). Let alone things like their root flag and later the E-Fuse introduced with Knox.
Custom ROMs in general I've found a mixed bag in terms of stability and availability, I'd advise buying a device with official support from somewhere like lineage OS first. This also ignores the cat and mouse games with anti-root protections.
This is why I prefer long term official support over a shorter term and relying on custom ROMs.
Samsung actually does have their own OS, Tizen, but it never really took off and was relegated to TVs and older smartwatches.
Could vary by region, but when it launched here (UK) Samsung said 4 years for os, 5 years for Security.
https://news.samsung.com/uk/the-samsung-galaxy-a54-5g-and-galaxy-a34-5g-awesome-experiences-for-all
"Galaxy A54 5G and Galaxy A34 5G also guarantee up to four generations of OS upgrades and five years of security updates. These features allow users to access the latest software and security to maximise the smartphone lifecycle."
Here
https://security.samsungmobile.com/securityPost.smsb
Does say 5 years for select A series devices, but then does say at the bottom "Availability of security update support may vary by device and market" so they could be shafting some markets.
4 years is still a lot better than a lot of other brands.
I just found this site:
https://endoflife.date/samsung-mobile
So apparently the phone will be supported until March 2028, although I can't verify their source.
Still, I know in my head when I bought it I had at least 2027, I actually went for this over Motorola (their preferred brand prior to this, despite the shorter support life over e.g. Nokia) because it wasn't that much more to receive the longer support.
The only thing that concerns me about consoles being forced to open up is that it could potentially increase the cost of hardware/services as they try to make up for the short fall in revenue.
That said, it would be nice to have a decent media player on the Switch.
On a side note, I hope Sony is forced to allow digital sales to be sold by third parties and they're sold in a similar way to physical, that I could see being more likely to benefit consumers over targeting the 30% cut.