Tag: Samsung Galaxy S8

In an unexpected move, it looks like Samsung has pulled their Android Oreo update for the Samsung Galaxy S8 lineup.  The update to the latest version of Android began rolling out to beta testers in Europe last week but according to SamMobile, the build has been pulled from Samsung’s update servers.

The news likely means that a show stopping bug or other install issues was discovered after the limited rollout began, forcing the South Korean company to halt the updates to prepare a new build to address the issue.

After months of testing and teasing, the Android Oreo update for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are starting to roll out.  The update brings Samsung Experience 9, the company’s skin on top of Oreo, to the 2017 flagship devices and weighs in at 487MB.  Right now, it appears that the release has only happened on the unlocked variants of the phones in Europe.  No indication on if it has hit US users yet but it will likely be soon.  Also keep in mind that beta testers will be the first to get the update so if you did not participate, you have a bit longer to wait.

Public beta testing of the Oreo build on the Samsung Galaxy S8 lineup began last November with the beta period ending January 15th of this year.

The release team at T-Mobile has been quite busy it would seem preparing updates for multiple Samsung Galaxy devices on their network.  Late yesterday the carrier released multiple updates for Galaxy devices, bringing overall improvements as well as the December Android Security Update patch to them.

The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are the first ones to get updated. The S7 will be receiving build G930TUVS4BQL2 while the S7 Edge will be getting build G935TUVS4BQL2.  For both devices, the OTA updates are less than 50MB and is primarily the December security patch although there could be some undocumented improvements brought to the devices.

T-Mobile customers who are carrying the Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus, there is a new software update that has been released for you.  The update brings the December Android Security Update to the devices but nothing else is mentioned in the release notes by T-Mobile.  It likely contains some performance fixes and bug fixes, especially given the size of the update files.

For the Galaxy S8, your new build is G950USQS2BQL1 and is 130.66MB in size.  For S8 Plus owners, you are getting build G955USQS2BQL1 and it is slightly smaller at 127.11MB.  The updates have been released by T-Mobile so you should start seeing the OTA updates for them as soon as today.

As part of their Black Friday sale, Samsung has dropped $150 off the unlocked variants of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus through their Amazon Storefront.  These are the unlocked variants of the phones and they have 64GB of onboard storage which can be expanded.

Samsung Galaxy S8 – $574.99

Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus – $674.99

These are by far the lowest prices on the Samsung flagship phones since their introduction earlier this year.

The 5.8″ Galaxy S8 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.

As rumored, Samsung has begun the public beta testing of their Android Oreo build for the Galaxy S8.  The program officially kicked off today and is expected to run for at least a couple of months.  It is good news for S8 owners as Samsung is notoriously slow about getting major updates out to their devices.  It would see, at least with Oreo, Samsung is trying to reverse the trend.

Unlike the beta program for Google’s Pixel and Nexus devices, Samsung is being very limited in the number of Galaxy S8 owners who get the beta & who have signed up for the program.  In talking to their technical support team today, I was informed that a small number of users who had signed up for the beta were randomly selected and were offered the OTA update to the beta.  When I asked if this would be expanded later, the support agent indicated it was possible but that she could not comment.