Tag: AT&T

Good news this morning for those of you who have a Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus on the AT&T network.  A new update is rolling out for both devices that brings Google’s Daydream VR support to both phones.

The update for the Galaxy S8 is G950USQU1AQGL while for the S8 Plus, you will get update G955USQU1AQGL.  These updates not only bring support for the Virtual Reality solution from Google, but also brings the August Android Security update along with several other bug fixes and patches.

After a week or rumors and leaks, the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active is real and available for pre-order.  The ruggedized version of the Galaxy S8 will, as it has been in the past, exclusively available from AT&T here in the United States.

The Galaxy S8 Active internally is just like the standard Galaxy S8 you can order from Samsung or your carrier.  The 5.8″ phone is powered by the octa-core Snapdragon 835 processor running four cores at 2.3GHz and the other four running at 1.9GHz.  It is coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage which is expandable up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD card.  The display renders at 2960 x 1440 QuadHD with an impressive 571 PPI.  Powering all of it is a 3000mAh battery which is charged with inductive charging.

Camera wise, the rear shooter is a 12MP camera with OIS and has a f/1.7 aperture.  On the front is an 8MP camera.  The S8 Active is IPS68 rating meaning it is water and dust proof.  It can go under water for up to 30 minutes.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 continues to get incremental updates from both Samsung directly and carriers here in the United States.  AT&T has started rolling out updated firmware version N910AUCS2EQF1 which is fundamentally the June Android Security update that was released by Google earlier this month.  In fact, only security updates are listed in the release notes on the AT&T site for the device.

This update does not update the device to Android Nougat, an update that is likely never to happen officially given the age of the device and the expected release of the Note 8 this summer.  Indeed, it is because of the debacle of the Note 7 that the 4 is still getting regular updates more-or-less.

AT&T, the second largest mobile carrier in the United States, has released their first quarter financials.  The company reported revenues of $39.4 billion for the quarter, a drop from the $40.5 billion the carrier reported in the same quarter last year.  $17.2 billion of the revenue is contributed to the wireless division, down 4.4% over the previous year.  The company reported that the reduction in revenue was attributed to the low number of equipment upgrades made by subscribers as well as the the lower ARPU (average revenue per user) thanks to recently adopted unlimited plans.

All of this contributed to a drop in net profit for the company.  For the quarter, the company made $3.5 billion, down from the $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2016.  The carrier has $3.2 billion in free flow cash available.

Good news for those of you who have the Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge on either AT&T or Sprint.  Both carriers have released the Android Nougat update for the devices on their respective networks, following up after the general release of the update by Samsung last month.  Principally, the updates for both carriers are the same.  Both bring all of the features of Nougat to the devices and both updates also bring device specific UX updates too.

The updates, as expected, are hefty.  They weigh in at over a 1GB on both carriers, regardless of variant, so you will certainly want to make sure that you are connected to Wi-Fi when you download the update.  Once it is downloaded, expect the update to take 15-20 minutes on either of the 2015 flagship devices.  After a reboot, you will be on Nougat.  If you need a refresher on what Android Nougat will bring to your phone, check out my review from last year.

With the March Android Security Update rolling out, February’s update is just now being rolled out by AT&T to some Samsung devices.  The update for the Galaxy Note 4, Note 5 and S5 Active are just now hitting customers. The updates themselves are quite small, under 200MB, and only contain the security update changes & fixes.  To put things into perspective, T-Mobile released the February Android Security Update for the Note 5 on their network on February 1st, the day the patch was released.

The challenge of upgrades and security patches is a well trodden road that we don’t need to visit yet again.  But it speaks volumes of the problem facing the platform when one carrier is releasing a security patch some 5 weeks after it was originally released.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5

The update for these devices shouldn’t take long to download given their size.  Once you have the download completed, your will need to reboot your device to apply the update which, all in, should take about 20 minutes to get done.  For reference, the build numbers for the updates are as follows:

• Galaxy Note 4 – MMB29M.N910AUCS2EPK4
• Galaxy Note 5 – MMB29K.N920AUCS4CQB2
• Galaxy S5 Active  – MMB29M.G870AUCS2DPK5

Unless you just absolutely have to do so, I strongly encourage readers to avoid carrier locked devices from any carrier.  Updates tend to be much slower from carriers while unlocked devices from manufactures, as a general rule, will get updates faster.  That doesn’t always hold 100% true but close enough.  Obviously devices from Google like the Pixel and Nexus phones get updates the quickest.