Fast, easy and secure guide to update your Samsung phone to the latest available Android version!
Do you own a Samsung phone?
Are you tired of waiting for an official OTA (Over The Air) update?
Are you ready to take things into your hands, but you’re not entirely sure where to start and how to do it?
Well then this guide is exactly what you are looking for.
Why should I manually update?
Well if you need to ask yourself this question, then you probably shouldn’t.
Here are my reasons on “why should you”
Let’s be honest, Samsung is known to be notoriously slow with the updates,
and when they are finally available it still takes quite a while to reach your phone over the OTA. Why would you wait if you can do it yourself in a matter of minutes.
I do also like to try out the latest and greatest software, and Samsung is one of the manufactures that include a lot of futures into their skin, heck that and the best screen on the market is probably why you’ve brought their phone in the first place, right?
Every major Android update brings new futures
Every major Android update brings some new features, Oreo in particular brings picture-in-picture mode, notification channels, background app optimisations, notification snoozing, and more.
There are also plenty of Samsung-specific changes that comes with Samsung Experience 9.0.
For instance, there is the new keyboard with stickers and GIFs built in, the App Pair feature from the Samsung Galaxy Note8 (which has yet to receive its own official Oreo release), and many more under-the-hood changes.
And of course you will be running the latest security patch, which means, you will be safe from BlueBorne, KRACK, and Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities
What will be doing?
In this guide I will be updating my Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus Exynos version to the latest officially available version, Android 8.0 Oreo.
However this will work with any newer Samsung phone, if there is a newer version available.
THIS WILL NOT VOID YOUR WARRANTY, NOR ROOT YOUR PHONE!!
What will we need?
- Computer with Internet access,
- Samsung phone,
- USB cable,
- Some free time.
Firstly, BACKUP your phone!!
I can’t stress this enough, it’s always better be safe than sorry. Although this method shouldn’t delete any of your files, you can never be too safe.
Now on to the fun part!
- Check your phone’s model number to see if its G950F (Galaxy S8 Exynos) or G955F (Galaxy S8+ Exynos).
These models are the only ones which can flash the Oreo builds that are available(for) now. If you do not have either of these models, do not proceed. - If you have a G950F then download these files:
AQL5 Odin and AQL5 to CRAP.
(Yes It’s seriously called CRAP)
If you have a G955F model then download these files:
AQL5 Odin, AQL5 to ZRA5, and ZRA5 to CRAP. - Extract the Odin firmware linked earlier. It will be in a zip format.
I usually use 7.zip software, it’s free and it’s fast. - Reboot your phone into the download mode. You do that by powering off your device, and then holding the Bixby button + Volume down + power.
Press all three at the same time! - Download the Odin tool and plug in your phone to your computer.
Odin is an official tool from Samsung that can flash official Samsung firmware onto Samsung Galaxy devices.
In Odin on the right side, you will see five sections, but we will be using only four of them. - Click the BL button and navigate to your Odin firmware folder where you extracted your files, and then click the file starting with BL. Do the same for AP, CP, and HOME_CSC
When you’ve unzipped the files, put them into the right sections in Odin.
Then click start at the bottom of Odin.
Wait for your device to flash and then reboot.
As soon as it reboots, power off your phone again. Then, boot into recovery once more by holding down the Bixby button + Volume up + power.
The next steps will differ depending on what model you have.
If you own a regular S8 — G950F
In recovery select “apply update from ADB” and then on your computer open a command prompt by pressing Windows key + R and typing “cmd.
Or holding shift and pressing the right key on the mouse, and then selecting “open command prompt here”
Once this command prompt open up, then type adb sideload <path to file update.zip> and hitting enter. If you don’t already have ADB set up, then you can follow these quick set of instructions to get up to speed.
If you own a Plus model S8 + — G955F
In recovery select “Apply update from ADB” and on your computer open a command prompt by pressing the Windows key + R and typing “cmd.”
Or holding shift and pressing the right key on the mouse, and then selecting “open command prompt here”
Then, enter adb sideload <path to file G955F AQL5 to ZRA5.zip> in the command prompt.
Wait for your phone to reboot and then it will be running Android Oreo beta
To get to the official 8.0 Oreo release, power off your phone and then reboot into recovery again by holding Bixby button + Volume up + Power. Then select “Apply update from ADB.”
Finally, in the command prompt type adb sideload <path to file G955F ZRA5 to CRAP.zip>
This is it, you are running the latest official Android 8.0 Oreo!
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at wearemtodix@gmail.com
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