Reverting refurbished devices to previous versions I just purchased a few refurbished Samsung (S3, S4, S5) devices from Gazelle for a testing lab I'm organizing. The product listings for each said they had Android 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 respectively. However, when they arrived and booted up, they all appear to have 4.4.2 installed. Factory reset seems to only reset to version 4.4.2. Is there a way to (without rooting) revert the devices back to previous versions of Android?
Yes. There's a very easy way using Odin.

First, download odin from above link and also download whatever android version firmware you want from Sammobile, also download samsung drivers.
Then extract the odin archive.

Now, enable USB Debugging mode from developer options on your phone

Backup everything from phones. Data will be erased.

Now run odin and click on PDA button and point it to firmware file downloaded in earlier step.

Switch off your device completely. After that, turn your device on in download or Odin mode. This can be done by simultaneously holding the power button+volume down+home button on your phone. You should now be in download mode (it should say Downloading.... Do not turn off Target!).

Connect phone to pc using usb now. Once connected, the ID:COM section in Odin should turn to light blue. This means that the device has been connected and is ready for flashing. If it doesn't show any response, you may need to reinstall drivers.

Make sure &quot;Auto Reboot&quot; and &quot;F.Reset Time&quot; are enabled and disable every other option.

Click on Start in odin and wait a while, it may take sometime. Once done, it should say Success.

Finally boot the phone, first boot may take a while so wait atleast for 20mins by watch.


Perform these steps separately for every phone one by one.
Good luck, and hope it helps :)