What you need to know
- Samsung has brought updates for its Galaxy S7 and S8 devices.
- The updates place firm focus on improving the device's GPS capabilities while lacking security improvements.
- Samsung also updated its Galaxy Note 8 and S7 Edge with an interest in updating other old phones, too.
Samsung takes us back as it updates its old Galaxy S7 and S8 phones.
It's a bit hard trying to look back five or six years to Samsung's old Galaxy S7 and S8, especially after the Unpacked event where Samsung revealed the successors to its best foldable phones. However, according to Galaxy Club, these two devices are the first of several receiving new updates from Samsung. Keep in mind that the Galaxy S7 is nearly seven years old while the S8 is almost six.
The download size for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge firmware version G93FXXU8EVG3 update is an easy 31MB. The Galaxy S8's version G95FXXUCDVG4 update comes at a rather large 420MB download. It also looks like Samsung has brought an update for its Galaxy Note 8 with firmware version N950FXXUGDVG5. The updates pertain to the device's GPS capabilities, although they lack any sort of security improvements.
The report further suggests that Samsung isn't just stopping with this handful of phones. There appear to be, within Samsung's firmware servers, updates coming to the Galaxy S6 and older devices from the Galaxy A series.
The Galaxy S6 was released seven years ago, so it seems Samsung is going back to touch up some old devices. It suggests that there are still some active users out there, which very well could be even amid the ongoing 3G shutdown.
Interestingly, Google also recently brought in a GPS fix strictly for the Pixel 6 series earlier this month. Google stated the update was a "Fix for GPS location failure under certain conditions" and rolled it out as a separate update ahead of Android 13.
