Samsung is adjusting its system for version and security updates. New devices now have one firmware version for an entire European region instead of separate versions that differ per country. Does that mean phones are now updating faster? We explain.
New update strategy Samsung
Samsung is one of the smartphone manufacturers that offers the best update policy for its phones. You can read that from this recent research by Androidworld in which we discussed the policy of all brands in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, something seems to be changing in Samsung’s update method in recent months, which has been noticed Galaxy Club on.
We have always been used to Samsung rolling out a separate firmware update for each European country, and you can see that in the country code or ‘CSC’ in the firmware version. For the Netherlands, that code is ‘PHN’. Since last year, a number of phones have appeared that have firmware that comes without such a Dutch code, but with the code ‘EUX’. Examples are: the Galaxy Z Fold3, the Z Flip 3, the Galaxy S21 FE and the Galaxy A52 4G.
European firmware now standard?
Samsung uses the firmware with EUX in a large number of European countries and with new updates, smartphone users in all those countries receive an update notification approximately simultaneously. Such an EUX code can now also be seen in the well-known firmware of the upcoming Samsung phones from 2022. It concerns the following devices:
- Samsung Galaxy S22 / S22 Plus / S22 Ultra
- Samsung Galaxy A53
- Samsung Galaxy A33
- Samsung Galaxy A13
It is still too early to draw any conclusions, but it seems that Samsung wants to roll out updates in more European countries at the same time. Being an exception branded Samsung–devices that you buy through your provider, because they still come with modified firmware from Vodafone or T-Mobile.
What are the consequences?
It remains to be seen whether this new approach is really beneficial for users and whether new version and security updates will now be available more quickly and also contain fewer errors. GalaxyClub noted that the Galaxy A52 4G with its EUX firmware had to wait longer for the Android 12 update than the 5G variant with Dutch PHN code.
Samsung may be a bit more careful with the EUX firmware because such updates immediately reach significantly more users. Although the update process could be accelerated if all specific versions with country codes will soon be a thing of the past. Samsung may want to strive for that, but time will tell.
Android 13 beta in the Netherlands?
We do see a clear advantage with the European software updates. The last Samsung Galaxy S21 devices were last year, like every year, the chosen phones with which Samsung tests the beta of Android 12. In many countries, S21 users were able to test the latest Android version early, but, like every year, Dutch devices were not given access to the beta. With a European firmware version for the S22, that could change this year.
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– Thanks for information from Androidworld. Source