You may have noticed with the release of Android 14 QPR1 Beta 1 yesterday that the list of supported devices has shortened. There are two devices missing from it and that’s because those two devices, the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G, are about to reach their end of life.
The Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G were introduced at the end of September 2020, but then launched separately in October and November, respectively. Since these were both before the arrival of the Pixel 6 line, where Google extended the years of update support to 5 years, they are on the old 3-year schedule. It has been three years since these two phones first hit our hands, if you can believe that.
Google left them out of the Android 14 QPR1 Beta 1 update yesterday because that QPR1 update will go through several releases before hitting stable in December. It is the December update after all, for those confused by the timing here. So since that update won’t drop until December, that is outside of the software support window for the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G. Those two phones will stop seeing updates after October and November.
So we’re clear, both of these phones will still see the stable update to Android 14 at any moment. They will then stay on Android 14, possibly with a final bug fixer at some point down the road. For now, though, there is no indication that they will be updated to QPR1.
Like the Pixel 4a that stopped receiving updates as of this month, it may be time to consider upgrading to a new phone. Not only do you have a constant flow of deals on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will be here within a couple of weeks too.
Once again, be sure to check the Pixel update schedule to see when your phone or foldable or tablet will stop receiving updates.