How do International versions (N920i) receive updates here in the US?

anon(9652351)

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I'm looking for a Note 5 N920i in 64GB to put my AT&T SIM card in. This way I'm done with carrier bloatware. However....Do the 920i models get updates here in the states if they have that carriers SIM card installed?
 

Tumultus

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Yes, they should. The update has nothing to do with the SIM card. The one thing you have to keep in mind: AT&T will not support you on the hardware if you bring your own device and, most likely, they will blame every technical problem on your phone even when logic tells you it isn't. Just a warning. :)
 

anon(9652351)

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Yes, they should. The update has nothing to do with the SIM card. The one thing you have to keep in mind: AT&T will not support you on the hardware if you bring your own device and, most likely, they will blame every technical problem on your phone even when logic tells you it isn't. Just a warning. :)

Hi,
AT&T can blame all they want and I won't argue. The trade off is no bloatware and especially no Carrier IQ Spyware. But are you saying I'd receive OS updates even though it's an international version?
Thanks
 

erasat

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Hi,
AT&T can blame all they want and I won't argue. The trade off is no bloatware and especially no Carrier IQ Spyware. But are you saying I'd receive OS updates even though it's an international version?
Thanks

You will receive your update when Samsung releases it for the region where the phone is from.
 

bsu11a

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You will receive your update when Samsung releases it for the region where the phone is from.

Since we don't see much in the way of update frequency outside of the US I'm wondering if anyone in the forums that has an unlocked international phone, preferably a Samsung, could comment on their experience with OS updates? More timely or less timely than the typical US carrier phone? Thanks.
 

erasat

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Since we don't see much in the way of update frequency outside of the US I'm wondering if anyone in the forums that has an unlocked international phone, preferably a Samsung, could comment on their experience with OS updates? More timely or less timely than the typical US carrier phone? Thanks.

It will be definitely faster than carriers, remember that this updates come directly from Samsung to the international versions Vs the same update that goes to the Carriers and then they add their huge bloatware and test them before they are released.

The only exception right now has been T-Mobile, who for the past 2 or 3 updates since S6/s6 edge were released, they have been surprisingly fast with their updates and even managed to get 5.1.1 released before than most of the International Unlocked versions. I had a Blue Topaz Unlocked S6 (SM-G920i) and it was SLOOOOOOW with updates, be aware that even when you get this Unlocked versions it doesn't mean that they are the official International version, in the S6 case, the "International" version was the SM-G920f/SM-G925F models, so this variants get the updates first, the i and the rest of other variants even when they are Unlocked they belong to an Specific region, so your updates will depend on such region. In the i variant, it is from the Australia/New Zealand region and experience has told me that this regions gets their updates even later than US carriers.

I hope you understand what I'm saying here, Samsung doesn't sell "Unlocked" versions directly to the consumer that are maintained by them directly, this kind of models usually means definitely faster updates, but at least, if you find what they call their International version, that one will work similar, problem is that it seems that for S6 and edge phones that was the f models, for Note5 there is no f version, that I know of, there is an i version and it belongs to the same Australia/New Zealand region and if it's just like the S6 and S6 edge versions, they may be easily the last ones updating.
 
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bsu11a

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It will be definitely faster than carriers, remember that this updates come directly from Samsung to the international versions Vs the same update that goes to the Carriers and then they add their huge bloatware and test them before they are released.

The only exception right now has been T-Mobile, who for the past 2 or 3 updates since S6/s6 edge were released, they have been surprisingly fast with their updates and even managed to get 5.1.1 released before than most of the International Unlocked versions. I had a Blue Topaz Unlocked S6 (SM-G920i) and it was SLOOOOOOW with updates, be aware that even when you get this Unlocked versions it doesn't mean that they are the official International version, in the S6 case, the "International" version was the SM-G920f/SM-G925F models, so this variants get the updates first, the i and the rest of otehr variants even when they are Unlocked they belong to an Specific region, so your updates will depend on such region. In the i variant, it is from the Australia/New Zealand region and experience has told me that this regions gets their updates even later than US carriers.

I hope you understand what I'm saying here, Samsung doesn't sell "Unlocked" versions directly to the consumer that are maintained by them directly, this kind of models usually means definitely faster updates, but at least, if you find what they call their International version, that one will work similar, problem is that it seems that for S6 and edge phones that was the f models, for Note5 there is no f version, that I know of, there is an i version and it belongs to the same Australia/New Zealand region and if it's just like the S6 and S6 edge versions, they may be easily the last ones updating.

How do you determine the region based on the model number? I'm on e-bay looking for my deal almost daily and there are a lot of 920(?) variants listed.
 

aokusman1

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I have a Verizon s6 without Verizon service. I can't receive any updates over the air because I do not have Verizon service.

Sent from my Z970 using Tapatalk
 

erasat

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How do you determine the region based on the model number? I'm on e-bay looking for my deal almost daily and there are a lot of 920(?) variants listed.

The most you can do on eBay on any other online purchases is to look for the last letter of the model number, if it's an "i" then you know that it's from Australia/New Zealand "f" in other models is for Europe and what it's known as International version.

For more detailed information look on Sammobile in the Firmware section, once you enter the Model number and it finds it, it will brings you the list of countries for that specific model.