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Silly straightforward question: are updates to Samsung devices firmware regional, meaning that US may get an update earlier than South America or EU?

Also: who controls those updates? Do they depend on carrier when the device is tied to one?

Thanks a lot...really!

Bruno Brant
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1 Answers1

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Samsung's OTA updates are carrier-based, as usual. Kies updates are usually regional, but not particularly restricted; you can usually select a different region when installing Kies and get updates from there.

Kies updates are up to Samsung, though they would probably work with carriers on it to ensure it works well and whatnot. OTA updates are controlled by the carriers, though of course they rely on Samsung to actually produce the update. There's being some speculation that Google wants to break the carriers' tight control over this (and pricing, etc.) but in general Samsung et al. don't want to get on their bad side.

Matthew Read
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  • Thanks again. So this means that if for some reason I find out that someone has a more recent update in the same region as mine, I can expect or at least have some hope that Kies will give me the update? – Bruno Brant Feb 22 '12 at 23:42
  • @Bruno Hard to say. It's certainly possible for an OTA to go out before a Kies update, I think usually they've been within a week though. – Matthew Read Feb 23 '12 at 00:39
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    What about WiFi-only devices, and the 'Update option under settings. Is that usually regional? – Julian Fondren Feb 23 '12 at 02:07
  • @JulianFondren Good question. I would assume it is and sends version info when checking for an update so that it can get the right one. Probably it depends on the particular device and manufacturer. – Matthew Read Feb 23 '12 at 18:51
  • @MatthewRead, one last question: is it possible to break the "regional lock" on my Samsung Galaxy S2? Or all I can do is manually flash the latest firmware? – Bruno Brant Feb 26 '12 at 21:55
  • @Bruno You'll have to clarify what you mean. If you're talking about SIM unlocking, it's quite easy for the S2 -- I think there are apps for it in the Market actually. – Matthew Read Feb 27 '12 at 13:25
  • @MatthewRead, no, what I mean is a way is to get updates from some other region. Is that possible? Oh, and thanks for your answers. – Bruno Brant Feb 28 '12 at 22:25
  • @BrunoBrant You might be able to use Kies with a different region, in the past at least it would allow you to grab the new firmware even if your old firmware was from a different region. But if not you'd need to use Odin. OTA packages are regularly made into Odin packages by the people over at XDA, you just need to check the sub-forum for your device. They'll often have a thread that lists all stock ROMs, and you can check it for updates. – Matthew Read Feb 28 '12 at 23:06