The recent botched update of Samsung’s 2017 flagship duo, the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ brought to fore something we have known for ages: many years down the line, Samsung still sucks at this whole updates business. Getting updates way late is like a feature that is part of the package when you purchase a brand new Samsung device.
Being the largest Android device vendor on the planet means that Samsung’s actions reverberate across the entire industry and the consequences are many and can be fatal, even. Like in instances where major vulnerabilities and flaws in Android that require quick fixing are unearthed (which is like every other day, anyway) yet those updates either arrive late or are never forthcoming at all. Then there’s the elephant in the room: updates that bring with them operating system upgrades like, say, a jump from Android 7.0 to 7.1 or 7.0 to 8.0, 8.0 to 8.1 etc. Expecting those is almost always an extreme sport. Even on devices that Samsung has committed to updating for at least 24 months, like those in its premium lineup.
That said, is there anything we can expect from Samsung this year in the form of Android updates given that Android Oreo has been around for a while now and devices like the Galaxy S8 ought to have received it latest before we called 2017 a wrap? The short answer is yes. Samsung does plan to upgrade some of its devices to Android 8. The question is, which are those devices and when?
That’s the question we are also trying to answer and this list, lifted from Samsung-focused site Sammobile in its entirety, might be a good window into what to expect, more so for devices that are available in the Kenyan market:
| Device | Timeline | Notes |
| Galaxy S8 | Any time now | Update started rolling out to users in Turkey, India, Germany, Norway, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Georgia, Belgium and the UAE but was cancelled immediately. The reason given for the cancellation was that the update was breaking some devices; causing random reboots and whatnot. The update is expected to become available again as soon as Samsung has fixed the issue. |
| Galaxy S8+ | Same as above | Same as above |
| Galaxy Note 8 | -- | It's quite a shame that what was billed as arguably one of the best smartphones of 2017 has not had a whiff of Oreo many months after launch. If there's one device that we can use to judge Samsung's lack of commitment to timely updates then it is this one. Imagine parting with Kshs 100,000 (or slightly more) then to be treated like this. Gosh! |
| Galaxy S7 | -- | -- |
| Galaxy S7 Edge | -- | -- |
| Galaxy A8 (2018) | -- | -- |
| Galaxy A8+ (2018) | -- | -- |
| Galaxy A7 (2017) | -- | -- |
| Galaxy A5 (2017) | -- | -- |
| Galaxy A3 (2017) | -- | -- |
| Galaxy J7 (2017) | -- | -- |
| Galaxy J5 (2017) | -- | -- |
| Galaxy J7 Max | -- | -- |
| Galaxy Tab S3 | -- | -- |
