Recent reports seem to suggest that Samsung has started documenting information about firmware updates on a new portion of its website. That includes changelogs for updates, which could be useful for advanced users to see exactly what has already been updated and when the update occurred. Accessing the information also takes a small amount of effort, but is not too difficult to accomplish, following some relatively easy steps. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t post anything related to future updates and, beyond that, there’s no immediately available list of countries or models the site will work for.
Getting to the site in question is fairly straightforward as users will only need their model number and their region identifier code. Still, the method of obtaining the regional code is something that varies from country to country, so users may need to do a bit of digging to find where the information can be found on their device. However, both numbers can ordinarily be found in the device’s settings menu. By way of example, users in India need to start by navigating to their settings menu. From there, tapping “About Phone” should result in a screen which contains the model designation under a relevant subheading. To get the region or carrier-specific code from that point, users will need to move into the section for “Software Information” and note the last three characters of the “Service Provider Software” code or “CSC” for short. Once that information is obtained, users simply need to open a browser and navigate to doc.samsungmobile.com/MODEL/CSC/doc.html with the appropriate information in place of both “MODEL” and “CSC” designations in the URL field.
Whether or not accessing the site for a specific model in a specific region works mostly comes down to whether the user’s local Samsung subsidiary is participating in the new program. The company has many different regional offices and those can choose to either take part or not in projects like this one on an individual basis. As of this writing, there’s no indication as to why some of those have chosen to store the repository online in this way either, though that information could come forward at a later date. In the meantime, interested users can try out the method described above to see if it works in their region and for their Galaxy device.