The smartphone is, in fact, a computer with an operating system (or firmware) which in 90% of cases, if it is not an iPhone, is Android. Android is an open source operating system whose development is handled by Google, which releases a new version every year making it available to phone manufacturers, who can then customize it and adapt it to their devices.
For this reason, while iPhones all over the world receive iOS system updates the day after the release, the only Android smartphones to update immediately are those produced by Google itself, such as the Nexus or the most recent Google Pixels.
So when we read about the release of the latest Android version on technological news sites, there is nothing to be excited about until the phone manufacturer, namely Samsung, Huawei, LG and others, release the new firmware version for the particular model we have.
At the same time, when buying a new smartphone, unless it is just a recent release, it is important to immediately check if there are system updates, which make the phone safer, more stable and with more functionality.
In this article we therefore see how to check for new Android updates on all Android phones and, in particular on smartphones Huawei (P9 and P9 Lite) and Samsung (especially the Galaxy S7), which are among the best sellers in Italy.
Updating Android is very easy on Samsung and all cellphones through the procedure called via OTA (Ota stands for Over The Air): just pull down the notification curtain by swiping your finger from above, touch the gear icon to enter in Android Settings and then scroll down until you find the " About phone " item.
From here, the first entry is the one that leads to the search for new updates.
If there is an update to install, then you can proceed with the download and installation that restarts the device and does everything automatically.
On the Huawei P9, in the phone settings you can find the Updater item, which manages the search and installation of new Android versions.
Checking for updates only requires that the internet connection is active via Wifi.
Samsung smartphones can also be updated from the PC using the Samsung Kies program.
There are no risks of problems so there should be no fear of updating, even if two requirements must be met in order to proceed.
First of all, the battery needs to be charged or charged.
In addition, a certain amount of free memory must be available in the internal memory of the phone.
If there is not enough memory, the update is blocked in the bud and cannot be done.
Although it is not a requirement, it is absolutely worthwhile, before proceeding with the installation of a system update, check on the Google Play Store that all the apps are already updated, in particular the Google ones.
After each update installed, it is worth repeating the check to see if there is another.
Some manufacturers, unfortunately, do not release updates via OTA and require users to proceed with manual download and installation of the firmware which is not at all convenient.
For example, ASUS used this mode for its Zenfone 2 smartphones to install Android 6.
Manual update requires you to download the update file, copy it to the phone memory and then install it using the update tool (the one found in the settings).
The sites from which to download the firmware are the official ones and, in particular, I refer to the links of Samsung, Huawei, LG, Asus.
Before installing, however, it is always advisable to read the instructions on the official forums and not to check the correct procedure.
If no update is available, there is not much to do except wait for a possible release.
In another article we then explained why Android does not update and how to do it .
