Visual consistency Samsung Galaxy S7 Oreo improvements Samsung's take on Oreo, first shown off with the Galaxy S9, isn't for everyone. But as far as Samsung's software goes, it's the best it's ever done and a nice improvement in design and functionality over the Nougat builds before it. And a huge benefit of this Oreo update for the two-year-old Galaxy S7 series is that it's near-identical to what comes out of the box on the Galaxy S9. There isn't a whole lot to talk about here, particularly since you've already been using your Galaxy S7 or S7 edge on Nougat for a year now. Things haven't changed all that much visually with Oreo, but you get a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements. There are new background limits for apps that help improve battery life, notification channels to give you better control over what apps notify you, and the biggest of the group will be the new Autofill APIs that let apps pull usernames and passwords from the cloud to speed up sign-in processes. This is a near-perfect recreation of the Galaxy S9's software, and battery life hasn't taken a nosedive. The biggest difference in the Oreo update compared to the Galaxy S9 is the camera interface, which has stuck with the Nougat-style interface rather than the new tab-style interface that lets you swipe between modes. You also don't get AR Emoji, but you probably don't care about that. Camera quality remains unchanged as far as I'm concerned — it's still surprisingly good for a two-year-old phone, but nobody would confuse it for one of the 2018 flagships. Battery life hasn't changed appreciably for me, which is a positive — I wasn't expecting battery life to improve, but I was definitely fearing that it'd degrade. We're bound to hear many horror stories about how Galaxy S7 battery life takes a nosedive after the Oreo update, as is the case with every major platform upgrade, but that hasn't been my experience. As you'll read below this may be a result of my choice to factory reset my Galaxy S7 edge after the update, which at this point I'm recommending everyone do on their phone if they can stomach the time it takes to set up your phone again. Samsung Galaxy S7 Oreo update: Which versions have received it My Verizon-branded Galaxy S7 edge updated to the April 1 security patch, which is (somewhat hilariously) a month ahead of the U.S. unlocked Galaxy S9 at the time of writing. I wouldn't expect Samsung to keep rolling out security patches for the Galaxy S7 series for too much longer, but knowing that you at least get a somewhat up-to-date patch on such an old device is good. Hiccups Samsung Galaxy S7 Oreo downsides Starting up my Galaxy S7 for the first time in several months, I feared the worst. I knew I'd be applying a dozen updates or so, all leading to the eventual big download of Oreo. It took most of a Saturday periodically checking and applying several updates, but eventually I got there and had Oreo installed ... but it was horrendously slow. Even after charging up for a few hours, updating all of my apps and restarting multiple times, it just didn't smooth out. Everything was stuttering, apps took several seconds to open, it was a complete mess. I'm recommending everyone do a factory reset after installing Oreo. Like so many Samsung phones before it, I decided to factory reset the phone to clear out the junk, start fresh and evaluate a clean slate of Oreo. To my relief, it improved dramatically. But it still didn't do enough — this phone is appreciably slower on Oreo than it was on Nougat. Comparing this Galaxy S7 edge side-by-side with another Galaxy S7 I have that's still on Nougat, it just isn't the same, and that's a shame. The best way to describe the performance on Oreo is that everything just takes an extra beat to complete. When you open an app, it takes a moment extra to open and then may take an extra few moments to be fully responsive. Scrolling through an app, the movement lags behind your finger enough to be noticeable. Quickly switching between apps or using something intensive, you notice dropped frames and stutters. It's not downright bad, but it's disappointing to see for a device that I felt was still relatively quick and modern-feeling when running Nougat. The performance isn't downright bad, but it's disappointing for a phone with this capable of specs. After all, the Galaxy S7 has a Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM, running out to a 1920x1080 resolution that's set by default to help performance — that should be enough to get better performance than I've been seeing on my Galaxy S7 edge here. Instead, this latest update makes the phone feel like it's running every action through some sort of extra layer that's getting in between your input and the response from the device. I won't say that the slowdown is enough to warrant skipping the Oreo update altogether. There are lots of under-the-hood improvements and new features to be used in Android 8.0 and Samsung Experience 9.0 that are worth updating for. But it just rubs me the wrong way that Samsung couldn't retain solid performance on a device with this level of internal hardware, especially one that performed quite well on Nougat. And yes, how could I forget — Oreo did remove the ability to set individual text message notification sounds on a per-contact basis. I've been reminded of this problem every day by at least one person who's angry about it. Samsung has said that it is working to bring the feature back after facing the wrath of thousands of angry users online. But in the meantime, there are many ways to bring back the feature using third-party messaging apps. I never knew that this was such a massively popular feature, but I sure do now.<doc-sep>Looks like the Oreo update roll out time frame for some 2017 Galaxy J series models has been pushed back. As per latest information on Guncelmiyiz (a Samsung website that tracks update schedules for users in Turkey), the Galaxy J3 (2017), J5 Pro, and J7 Pro will get Oreo towards September's end. Previously, the site said the Oreo update for these devices is in testing phase, and will arrive in mid-July (specifically, July 13). There's currently no information on why the roll out has been delayed, but we hope the company sticks to the schedule this time around. Note that the schedule for Galaxy A series devices is limited to Turkey as users in regions around the world have already received the Oreo update. Source | Via<doc-sep>
Samsung Galaxy A8/A8+ (2018) receiving Android Oreo with Dolby Atmos support As we begin the second half of 2018, it’s Samsung who is still working on bringing last year’s big Android update to their latest devices. The South Korean conglomerate released the Galaxy A8 2018 and the Galaxy A8+ 2018 back in January of this year. The devices were launched with Android 7.1.1 Nougat but are finally being updated to Android 8.0 Oreo with Samsung Experience 9.5 built on top of it. We’re seeing this update landing on devices in select markets around the world, which also adds support for Dolby Atmos. The Samsung Galaxy A8 2018 and Galaxy A8+ 2018 continue the company’s upper mid-range Galaxy A series (standing for Alpha) of smartphones. This series debuted in 2014 with the Galaxy Alpha, but then evolved into the A3, A5, A7, A8, and even the A9. We’re seeing reports that indicate these two models have started to receive the Android Oreo update in Russia. The updates come with the build numbers A530FXXU2BRG1 and A730FXXU2BRG1 and come with the July 2018 Android security patch level. Along with the new features that Android Oreo brings, the devices’ updated user manual also mentions support for Dolby Atmos. Not only that, but the Galaxy A8 2018 and Galaxy A8+ 2018 have also received an updated user interface for Samsung’s stock camera application. This is the same camera UI that is available on the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ and it’s good to see the company bring these updated apps to additional devices. The new features will be available to all Galaxy A8 devices with this latest Android update. The OTA update seems to have begun rolling out across Russia over the weekend, so if you’re in the area and haven’t received the notification yet then you may want to check manually. There are also reports indicating the update has also begun rolling out throughout Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine as well.