Due to the unfortunate turn of events that led to the discontinuation of the Galaxy Note 7, the Galaxy Note 5 is now the best device for people who can’t live without an S-pen. Sure, it’s over a year old now, but it’s still sporting some powerful hardware, and luckily for everyone who owns one or is looking to buy one in the near future, Samsung is apparently working on an Android 7.0 Nougat update for its 2015 phablet. A couple of weeks ago, we heard first reports of a Nougat update for the Galaxy Note 5, and according to latest developments, the said update will likely be rolling out sooner rather than later.
Namely, a Galaxy Note 5 running Android 7.0 Nougat was just spotted on GFXBench. While this listing doesn’t officially confirm that Samsung is wrapping up development of the new Android version for its last year’s phablet, it’s a pretty good indication that the Galaxy Note 5 will get upgraded to Nougat shortly. Namely, Android OEMs usually start benchmarking their customized Android builds only after they’ve more or less finished working on them and have already entered the debugging phase of development. Of course, take this report with a grain of salt given how a GFXBench listing can easily be faked, at least in terms of changing a model number of any Android device.
While this is obviously good news for all Galaxy Note 5 owners, it’s worth noting that a worldwide Nougat rollout probably won’t happen before 2017. Namely, Samsung already confirmed that the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge will be the company’s first two smartphones to get Nougat. As the said Android version for these two phones is still being tested as a part of a limited beta, they likely won’t receive an official Nougat update before the second half of December. With that in mind, it’s reasonable to presume that the Galaxy Note 5 will get the Nougat update in early 2017. Furthermore, the Galaxy Note 5 will likely get upgraded to Nougat simultaneously with the rest of Samsung’s 2015 flagship lineup, i.e. the Galaxy S6 series. So, while the largest phone maker in the world is yet to reveal an official Nougat release date for the Galaxy Note 5, more information is expected to follow soon.
