Some questions about sideloading KitKat

[mclasser]

I have a non-rooted N8013 and understand the official 4.4.2 update is available for manual flashing. I'm considering this option as there is no word on when the OTA will be pushed in the States. Some questions:

- The newest firmware is KitKat XXUDNE6 but all the sideloading tutorials online are for the N8000. Does this make a difference?
- If you flash 4.4.2, can you still receive any future updates from Google OTA or will you have to continue manually flashing everything?
- If something goes wrong and I need to revert back to Jelly Bean, what will I need to do?

Lastly, what are the experiences of people who have actually done this? Thanks for the help.

 

[Aquila]

I'm not 100% up to speed on flashing to Samsung devices and how their devices handle intermodel succession, but to determine if OTA's will happen or not depends primarily on what you mean by flashing. If you mean installing a ROM, it can still theoretically download an OTA but a mismatch in the build number and device ID to what is expected will cause it to fail. If you mean installing a factory image or running an OTA script through fastboot, both of those should have no problem receiving future OTA's assuming your device is identifiable as the model# of the firmware you install.

I believe that Samsung allows you to go completely factory through KEIS, but will leave that to Sammy experts.

The only other comment I have is that OTA's will never come to that device from Google - which helps you, because any updates come directly from Samsung and that will help avoid confusion on whether or not the update will be compatible.