[jamllew]

Hi,
I currently live in Houston but will be moving back to England and July but am seriously thinking about buying a GNex from Google before I leave to take advantage of the great sim free price. When official updates are sent out, even if I have the US Gsm version, will be able to receive them (either through a notification or through the checkin code) or while I need to flash them myself (and if so, would I need to root for that)?

Thanks in advance

[jamllew]

Anyone any idea with this? I am sure that quite a few people here in the US will have purchased the EU unlocked GSM version - do you need to root? Or is it as simple as copying an update zip to the phone?

Thanks in advance

[dancing-bass]

Well I do know that once you are rooted you can flash pretty much any zip to the phone, stock ROM in zip form, or custom ROM in zip. There are other options though

Right now, there are factory images available from Google for Yakju and Takju builds of 4.0.4. You can use something like Wugg's toolkit to flash these to your phone, essentially giving you the latest software. Soon after I got my phone (which was on Yakuux 4.0.2) I flashed a factory image (no root needed) to Yakju 4.0.4. Within a week there was an update pushed to my phone. Now, granted I'm still in North America (Canada actually) and the phone was purchased through a Canadian carrier. So that might have something to do with it, or it might not. What I do know is that the Yakju and Takju builds are updated directly from Google, and not through Samsung (which probably also has to clear carrier testing as well -- not entirely sure how that all works).

So my advice would be to flash your phone to a Yakju/Takju build if you haven't done so already, and hope for the best. Of course if you (or a friend who's stateside) could keep an eye out for updates, so much the better

[Andrew Martonik]

Hi,
I currently live in Houston but will be moving back to England and July but am seriously thinking about buying a GNex from Google before I leave to take advantage of the great sim free price. When official updates are sent out, even if I have the US Gsm version, will be able to receive them (either through a notification or through the checkin code) or while I need to flash them myself (and if so, would I need to root for that)?

Thanks in advance

It doesn't matter at all where in the world you currently are. All the OTA cares about is what build/type your phone is. You don't have to even have a SIM in. It'll OTA over WiFi with no location check. OTAs are rolled out based on your IMEI range. Nothing to worry about.

[Andrew Martonik]

Well I do know that once you are rooted you can flash pretty much any zip to the phone, stock ROM in zip form, or custom ROM in zip. There are other options though

Right now, there are factory images available from Google for Yakju and Takju builds of 4.0.4. You can use something like Wugg's toolkit to flash these to your phone, essentially giving you the latest software. Soon after I got my phone (which was on Yakuux 4.0.2) I flashed a factory image (no root needed) to Yakju 4.0.4. Within a week there was an update pushed to my phone. Now, granted I'm still in North America (Canada actually) and the phone was purchased through a Canadian carrier. So that might have something to do with it, or it might not. What I do know is that the Yakju and Takju builds are updated directly from Google, and not through Samsung (which probably also has to clear carrier testing as well -- not entirely sure how that all works).

So my advice would be to flash your phone to a Yakju/Takju build if you haven't done so already, and hope for the best. Of course if you (or a friend who's stateside) could keep an eye out for updates, so much the better

Although what you've said is true, it's all completely irrelevant to OP, sorry. All Google Play Galaxy Nexii come with the "takju" build and be updated by Google. As I stated above, it will update OTA no matter where you are in the world.

[jamllew]

Thanks for the feedback - it was the whole yakju/takju models that I was unclear about but that makes sense. Thanks for the advice about unlocking the bootloader too guys!

[dan1431]

When FroYo rolled out for the Nexus One, I was in Singapore (for work) and my Nexus One (with a STARHub SIM inserted) purchase from Google (in the USA) got the update just like it would have if it had been on my at&t post-paid plan.

Hope that helps,
Dan