The Samsung Galaxy S8 Active released by T-Mobile US is now receiving the highly anticipated Android 8.0 Oreo software update, joining the standard non-rugged models roughly two weeks after they’ve made the jump to Google’s newer Android iteration. The latest software carries the baseband version ‘G892USQU1BRC4’ and its distribution is carried out over the air, gradually expanding to all the units in the wild alongside a system update notification. The changelog published by T-Mobile doesn’t contain much information about the release, aside from the inclusion of unspecified bug fixes and software stability improvements.
Nevertheless, Android 8.0 Oreo for the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active should offer the same user experience provided by the update on the standard Galaxy S8 models, and this includes a newer version of the OEM’s proprietary Android skin, Samsung Experience 9.0. It introduces a reworked on-screen keyboard featuring a new toolbar, as well as new high-contrast themes, a revamped Finder designed to provide faster and more accurate searches, additional AI features through the inclusion of Bixby briefing, dual messenger capabilities allowing for the usage of two messaging accounts with the same phone and app, and additional display settings to prevent eye strain, just to name a few. In itself, Android Oreo should also further improve system performance, stability, and security through more recent Android security patches, all the while providing better battery life. As always, the update can be acquired by Samsung Galaxy S8 Active owners and T-Mobile customers either by tapping the system update notification when it arrives or by manually triggering the update process by navigating to the ‘Software update’ section within the main Settings menu.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 Active launched last August running Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box, and the distribution of Oreo in the United States began earlier this week, with AT&T’s variant being the first to start receiving the new firmware. The latest software package launched by T-Mobile weighs approximately 1.3GB, so, as always, users are advised to download it over a Wi-Fi network and ensure that the device has enough battery to last throughout the entire process, i.e. 50-percent or more.