Well, this is a first. Of all the major OEMs that we cover on Android Police, few give us more headache when it comes to their Android updates than Samsung and LG. HTC, Sony, Motorola have been known to reveal which devices they plan to update to a newer version of Android and to give a timeline of that update, a practice they have followed over the past few years, but Samsung and LG? Radio silence. That frustrated us as reporters and you as users because you never knew if a phone you bought last year would get bumped to a new Android version or not. And you didn't have a timeline. But that has changed today.

Samsung posted the official news of Android 7.0 Nougat rolling to the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, which we reported last week, but at the end of the press release, it slipped one interesting nugget of information for other device owners:

Android 7.0 Nougat will be expanded to additional countries on the following devices within the first half of this year: Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge and S6 edge Plus, Galaxy Note5, Galaxy Tab A with S Pen, Galaxy Tab S2 (LTE unlock), Galaxy A3, and Galaxy A8.

Ah, official news, how we revere you! So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. Samsung's four flagships from 2015 will see the update as well, which we all expected, along with a couple of tablets, and the A3 and A8, though there's no specific variant of the latter two mentioned. My bet would be the 2016 versions, but don't take my word for it. The absence of the A5 from this list is a little weird. Could be a mistake, a delay, or bad news for all A5 owners.

As to the timeline, we're looking at "the first half of this year," which is vague enough to give Samsung more than 5 months of leeway before it starts rolling these updates. Regardless, this is good news and I hope Samsung takes updates even more seriously with Android O, with more expansive beta tests and earlier official news of the lucky devices and schedules.