Is there a way to tell if a Nexus is yakju before you buy it?

[FreakyLocz14]

I wanna know.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

I wanna know.

There's no guarantee. If you're buying it in person, you can install an app that will check. Like this one: https://market.android.com/details?id=de.cbruegg.officialupdate

If you're buying it from a retailer that's shipping to you, you'll never know. Most models sourced from Western Europe / UK are yakju, most Eastern Europe / Asia are not, most from Canada are not. South America is a mix, Australia is usually not yakju.

But why do you care? No matter what model you get, you can flash yakju on it in 5 minutes and it'll be the exact same as if it came out of the box with it. You don't even have to boot the phone up first.

Buy it wherever you can get it cheapest. I bought mine for $565 because it was cheap. I knew ahead of time it was a Canadian model w/o yakju. Turned it on once to confirm it was working, then rebooted into fastboot and flashed Google images. Its yakju now and I've never looked back.

 

[trinxified]

There's no guarantee. If you're buying it in person, you can install an app that will check. Like this one: https://market.android.com/details?id=de.cbruegg.officialupdate

If you're buying it from a retailer that's shipping to you, you'll never know. Most models sourced from Western Europe / UK are yakju, most Eastern Europe / Asia are not, most from Canada are not. South America is a mix, Australia is usually not yakju.

But why do you care? No matter what model you get, you can flash yakju on it in 5 minutes and it'll be the exact same as if it came out of the box with it. You don't even have to boot the phone up first.

Buy it wherever you can get it cheapest. I bought mine for $565 because it was cheap. I knew ahead of time it was a Canadian model w/o yakju. Turned it on once to confirm it was working, then rebooted into fastboot and flashed Google images. Its yakju now and I've never looked back.

Not to de-rail the thread too much, but if I do the yakju conversion, will that allow me to get the updates faster without interruption from Google? I guess OTA updates would be coming ASAP right? I'm not into the custom roms yet and all that, so I prefer sticking to official updates for now. BTW, I got a Canadian model for sure.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

Not to de-rail the thread too much, but if I do the yakju conversion, will that allow me to get the updates faster without interruption from Google? I guess OTA updates would be coming ASAP right? I'm not into the custom roms yet and all that, so I prefer sticking to official updates for now. BTW, I got a Canadian model for sure.

Yes, the yakju variant should be receiving updates "from Google" rather than "from Samsung" like the yakju** variants. The lag between the two roll-outs isn't huge but it can vary.

If you choose to flash Google (yakju) images, and also flash the radios, etc. then you will receive OTAs just fine. If you change the recovery, radios, or anything, it will stop your OTAs. Rooting alone will not stop OTAs, but you'll more than likely loose the root when you accept the OTA.

 

[trinxified]

Yes, the yakju variant should be receiving updates "from Google" rather than "from Samsung" like the yakju** variants. The lag between the two roll-outs isn't huge but it can vary.

If you choose to flash Google (yakju) images, and also flash the radios, etc. then you will receive OTAs just fine. If you change the recovery, radios, or anything, it will stop your OTAs. Rooting alone will not stop OTAs, but you'll more than likely loose the root when you accept the OTA.

Do you mind linking me something that will show me how to fully flash my device to yakju so I can receive direct OTA updates from Google? I tried to look at xda-developers but I'm so confused since there's so many things there. I'm a new Android OS user, and new to Galaxy Nexus as well. I got a Galaxy Note, but I'm not concerned with that since I'll have to stick with my carrier/Samsung to update that for me until I decide to do custom roms.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

Do you mind linking me something that will show me how to fully flash my device to yakju so I can receive direct OTA updates from Google? I tried to look at xda-developers but I'm so confused since there's so many things there. I'm a new Android OS user, and new to Galaxy Nexus as well. I got a Galaxy Note, but I'm not concerned with that since I'll have to stick with my carrier/Samsung to update that for me until I decide to do custom roms.

Thanks in advance.

I'm sure there are guides here on AC but I'm more active on XDA so I'll link there before I tell you the wrong thing.

I used this thread: [HOWTO] Change from Yakju** to Yakju - xda-developers

Specifically in that thread, this post: xda-developers - View Single Post - [HOW-TO] Change to yakju from yakjuxw (or ANY other version) *OP Updated with guide!*

Which has a video and the post/guide he used. If you're on Windows the hardest part of it is getting the drivers set up. If you're on Mac, you either need to borrow a Windows box or install the entire Android SDK (more work than you wanna do for this job).

There are simple or one-click methods (like the wugfresh toolkit), but I think its best to do it manually yourself. The Galaxy Nexus is so simple to do this on, and Fastboot is pretty foolproof. It took me about 45min total -- 40 min to get the drivers installed, 5min to flash the phone.