Checked @ 5:30 am in the East TX area and no update.
Man SIII'3 updated weeks ago
I thought the Note II was a flagship phone..
The Note 2 is a flagship phone, and there are several reasons why it is:
1. It is the successor to the original Galaxy Note. It also has a successor, the Note 3. Flagship model phones have multiple generations like this.
2. Like the Galaxy S series of phones, the Note series are sold all over the world.
3. It was the first phone in Samsung's line of phones to come with Android 4.1 out of the box.
4. The original Note came with Android 2.3.6, but it got updated all the way to 4.1.2. Flagship phones get more prioritized for updates, even though it seems like it takes forever for them to get released. That's because of the carriers who need to install bloatware and test the update on their individual networks.
5. The Note 2 came with all the features that the S3 had, plus more features that are special to the Note 2. This is also true of the Note 3.
6. The Note 2's multi-window feature was ported across multiple phones in Samsung's line of Galaxy devices.
7. In the 4.3 update, whenever that may be, the Note 2 will get some of the features found on the S4 and the Note 3.
The only reason why this phone is getting its first major update in over a year is because Android has changed only incrementally from 4.1 to 4.3. Plus, the 4.2.x update had too many problems on the S3 and Note 2, so it had to be skipped, adding to the delay. On top of that, other phone manufacturers skipped the 4.2 update in favor of 4.3 on their own flagships.
Android doesn't need much more change now as it did a few generations ago; it's much more stable now. That's why we have what we have here: incremental updates that still bear the title Jelly Bean.
This update is only taking this long because AT&T is still fixing the problems in it. I don't know what they are (I've asked the chat reps on both AT&T and Samsung and they weren't able to tell me), but they say there are problems and that the update will be released very soon. But we've probably heard that over and over again without knowing a solid ETA.
If it makes you feel better, now let's take a look at the Infuse 4G. It was sold only in the U.S. and Canada and came with Android 2.2.1 Froyo when Gingerbread was readily available. The phone got so little attention from Samsung and AT&T that it took almost a year to release the (then severely outdated) Gingerbread update (released in April 2012), and it hasn't been updated since. Now that is the definition of a seriously non-flagship phone.