It has been months since Google officially released Android 7.0 Nougat, but most manufacturers are yet to roll out the update to their respective smartphones and tablets. What’s even more disconcerting is that many companies are still launching new smartphones with Android Marshmallow on board, with no word on when the Nougat update will come through. In case of Samsung, the company hasn’t always been the quickest off the blocks to roll out software updates to its devices, and has often faced criticism from customers for failing to patch up vulnerabilities and roll out new features within an acceptable time-frame. However, this time around, the company has reportedly already started testing an Android Nougat beta update for a bunch of its premium smartphones that were launched over the past couple of years.
The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are two of the Samsung smartphones that are slated to get Android Nougat in the near future, and the company has even launched a public beta for the two handsets recently. New reports now seem to suggest that the company has also started testing an Android 7.0 Nougat beta update on the Galaxy S6, which launched last year. Samsung was earlier reported to have started developing a Nougat update for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, but the source of the latest report seems to be a couple of new listings on Geekbench and GFXBench, which are cross-platform benchmarking websites that often reveal some really useful information about smartphones and other gadgets. While there’s no way to tell when Samsung will finally get around to actually rolling out the new software, it would still be heartening for many users to know that the much-awaited update for their smartphone is only a matter of time.
While there’s no word on what to expect from Samsung’s upcoming update for the Galaxy S6 family, the beta Nougat builds for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge will reportedly bring some of the features that were originally available on the all-new Grace UX of the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7, like Always-on Display options, new power saving modes, a performance optimizer and a slider to change screen resolution. Disconcertingly, though, recent reports have suggested that the Android Nougat beta update for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge seems to render those devices incompatible with Samsung’s own Gear VR headset. It will be interesting to see if the same issue also bugs the Android 7.0 update for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge.
