Android (Samsung) updates - is this how it works?

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robjg63

4096 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#94793 19-Dec-2011 11:51

Like many people I have bought a parallel imported android phone - namely a Samsung Galaxy Ace. I am running it quite happily on 2 degrees (who have never sold this phone I believe).

The phone has gingerbread 2.3.3 installed and I havent had any real issues with it.
It has firmware that is branded with GLOBUL (which I find is a Bulgarian telco). As I said everything actually works fine - so this isnt really a problem.

At some stage though, the android updates will get tempting and at the moment I am not too keen to try the alternate experimental ROM firmwares.

So...

If I hook my phone up to kies it says
"Your device does not support software upgrading via kies"

and it displays a long string which identifies the software installed.

As far as I understand.

1) If you buy a phone from your telco (say Vodafone who do sell this phone) will only get updates via vodafone if they choose to make them available. The phone has to already have software installed that identifies it as a VF release. The release would be an over the air update from vodafone. <Though the phone also has the facility to try and get updates via wifi.>

2) There are some 'international' android releases that would effectively be a vanilla samsung release. If you have this installed you may be able to pick up updates via Kies(with an attached usb cable). Are these also the releases you may be able to get via wifi?

If you have a parallel imported android phone then you probably cant update it via any normal/supported channels. So short of travelling to Bulgaria (in my case) and buying a local SIM I will have to remain on the firmware currently installed (apart from going down the ODIN/find and flash some other firmware path).

Have I pretty much summed up the situation?
Any obvious and simple work arounds that I have missed?

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

Loftus

140 posts

Master Geek

#559525 19-Dec-2011 12:35

robjg63:
If you have a parallel imported android phone then you probably cant update it via any normal/supported channels. So short of travelling to Bulgaria (in my case) and buying a local SIM I will have to remain on the firmware currently installed (apart from going down the ODIN/find and flash some other firmware path).

My experience with an imported phone (AT&T Captivate - American Galaxy S variant) was that when using the unmodified stock firmware it was possible to download firmware updates OTA via WiFi, even when located outside the US. I would expect that, when an update is available for your handset & telco combination, you will be able to do the same. The main problem is often Telco-supplied handsets are a long period behind in on the "update curve".

Which is why some phone geeks look to sites like XDA-developers to "hurry up" the process, amongst other benefits :)

uglyb0b

335 posts

Ultimate Geek

#559529 19-Dec-2011 12:44

robjg63:
1) If you buy a phone from your telco (say Vodafone who do sell this phone) will only get updates via vodafone if they choose to make them available. The phone has to already have software installed that identifies it as a VF release. The release would be an over the air update from vodafone.

- Yes, this is the CSC part of the firmware. You can change it to enable you to get updates from other carriers, or just flash the phone with generic unbranded firmware from Samsung.

robjg63:
2) There are some 'international' android releases that would effectively be a vanilla samsung release. If you have this installed you may be able to pick up updates via Kies(with an attached usb cable). Are these also the releases you may be able to get via wifi?

- Yes, the best place to get these is probably www.samfirmware.com

robjg63:
3) If you have a parallel imported android phone then you probably cant update it via any normal/supported channels. So short of travelling to Bulgaria (in my case) and buying a local SIM I will have to remain on the firmware currently installed (apart from going down the ODIN/find and flash some other firmware path).

- Some carriers do not support OTA updates or updates through Kies, so in this situation that probably will not work. However if you changed the CSC firmware or flashed a completely different rom with Odin, that will solve the problem.

If you are going to go down the rom flashing path, before you do, type in *#1234# and note down the details that appear. These are the build details of your stock rom, and you will need this if you wanted to revert to stock firmware for warranty purposes.

robjg63

4096 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#559555 19-Dec-2011 13:30

Thanks folks.
Just wanting to make sure I hadnt missed anything obvious.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler