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Galaxy AI is coming to even fewer Samsung phones than we thought
Own a Samsung Galaxy S22? We have bad news for you
With the Samsung Galaxy S24 series unveiling last week, Artificial Intelligence has somehow become an even bigger talking point in smartphones. Samsung even went to the extent of calling them “AI phones” instead of smartphones. Some of the new features in the Galaxy AI suite are genuinely cool, and the Korean giant was quick to confirm that the feature set will eventually be made available to older devices as well. However, it turns out that the final list of eligible devices will be much smaller than we thought, and has some notable omissions as well.
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- Speaking to SamMobile, Samsung has revealed that the update was halted as it investigated a limited number of S8+ units rebooting unexpectedly on Oreo.
Just last week, Samsung began rolling out Android 8.0 Oreo to the Galaxy S8 and S8+ after a roughly three-month beta phase. However, according to SamMobile, it seems like Samsung has suspended the rollout, though the reason behind that decision is unclear.
Motorola's excellent track record with updating devices fell by the wayside as it became part of Lenovo and started releasing more device variants than anyone can keep track of each year. Nothing is better proof of that than the Moto G4 Play's situation. The device, which was released on September of 2016, has been stuck on Marshmallow 6.0.1 for months and months as owners gave up on even getting an update. Then the unlocked international variant started getting Android 7.1.1 last month and now the Verizon one is following suit.
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- Samsung has stopped the rollout due to some devices experiencing unexpected reboots.
After a few months of beta testing, Samsung has finally begun rolling out the official Android 8.0 Oreo update to the Galaxy S8 and S8+. It's been almost six months since the first public version of Oreo was released to the original Pixel, but then again, it's not like we aren't already used to slow rollouts anyway.
Sony has started rolling out an update to Android 8.0 Oreo to its Xperia X and Xperia X Compact phones. The version has build number 34.4.A.0.364 and is a little over one gigabyte to download.
When HTC announced the HTC U11 Life about a month ago, it promised the device wouldn't be stuck on Nougat for long and would get Oreo soon. That was actually one of the positive points in favor of the U11 Life when David reviewed the phone, but as it turns out, many OEMs are using that strategy to avoid the requirements of Treble support when launching with Oreo directly. I don't know if HTC falls in that category, but it sure smells like that is the case.
Android O is expected later this year, but there's still (at least) one more update to Android 7.1. Google released the first 7.1.2 Beta back in January, followed by a second beta in March. We've now received multiple reports of 7.1.2 being pushed to users outside the beta program.
Nextbit started testing out its Android Nougat update last November through a closed beta program that required users to sign up. Today, a few months later, the final Nougat build is starting to roll to everyone, no beta sign-up needed.
The wait for OTA updates seems to be our "favorite" past-time these days. Android 7.0 or 7.1.1 for our phones, Play Store support for our Chromebooks, Wear 2.0 for our watches, we're almost always waiting for some new firmware to hit our devices. But one of these could be coming to an end soon: according to @HuaweiServiceDE, Android Wear 2.0 might be rolling to the Huawei Watch at the end of March.
ZTE isn't having its best days lately after pleading guilty to violating US sanctions against Iran and the failure of its Kickstarter campaign for the Hawkeye, but that hasn't stopped the company from still forging on with its quick and laudable support for the Axon 7.
I still don't have Android 7.0 on my top-of-the-line Galaxy S7 Edge in Lebanon, and that makes me fume each time I see another device being updated to Nougat while I'm stuck on Marshmallow. But it also makes me appreciate OTA updates even more when they're issued for lesser known devices and by lesser known companies.
When Android 7.0 Nougat started rolling out in August, Sony announced a list of devices that would get the official update sooner or later. These updates started at the beginning of the month with the Xperia X Performance and XZ and now another duo of phones is getting the Nougat treatment: the X and X Compact.
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Ready for some Nougaty goodness before the end of the year, HTC One M9 users? If you answered with an enthusiastic "yes!" then I hope you have an unlocked device, because that's the one getting the OTA update to Android 7.0 in the US. If you bought your handset from an operator, you will have to wait longer, unfortunately.
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- The official Google blog post announcing the update is live. In it, Google confirms that, yes, the Nexus 6 will get Android 7.1.1 as originally promised, and that devices in the Android beta program will receive an OTA to the release version of Android 7.1.1 soon. There's also an official post on the Android Developers Blog.
The Google Pixel is a great phone—even David likes it, and David does not like things as a rule. It has the best smartphone camera Google has ever sold, but it's not without its problems. Users have been reporting a distracting halo lens flare in photos taken in bright light, but a fix is apparently on the way. Google says an upcoming OTA will address this issue with the power of math.
The Xperia C5 Ultra launched last year with Android Lollipop, as in 5.0. An over-the-air update to Android 5.1 arrived this past January. Eight months later, Sony is pushing the device up to Marshmallow.
Actively watching Nougat roll out to Nexus owners this week? Most Android devices don't have a shot at getting an update to the latest and greatest. Some, like the Galaxy S5 Active, are only just now getting an update to last year's version.
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- Alternatively, you can follow HTC's instructions to manually download the full RUU file (1.26GB) and flash it to your phone. The detailed steps are linked below.
The Desire 626s is a midrange device that HTC announced about a year ago and released a month later in the US. By today's standards, it's even quite low-end with its Snapdragon 210, 1.5GB of RAM, 5" 720p display, and 8MP/2MP camera setup. But it's still a capable device and a popular one at that thanks to an affordable price and the decent build quality that HTC is known for.
Folks who chose to get an LTE-enabled tablet from T-Mobile and went with the Galaxy Tab S2 are starting to receive an over-the-air update bringing Marshmallow to their device. For a few months at least, users will get to have the latest and greatest on their Android tablet.
NVIDIA has released an update for its Shield Portable console device today, namely update version 110. The OTA doesn't add anything new, but it resolves some long-standing bugs and gives the device some much-needed security patches. You can see what's changed (rather, been fixed) in the official changelog from NVIDIA's forums, below.