Update to Android 8.1 available for Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017) in some countries

The Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017) is a decent mid-range phone with an all-metal build. However, its owners have also been affected by relatively poor support for software updates from its manufacturer. On the other hand, recent reports indicate that this drawback is being addressed - for some phones bearing this name, at least.

SamMobile has reported that the Galaxy J5 (2017) now has access to a software update that brings Oreo 8.1 to the phone. This means that Samsung has passed 8.0 over for this phone entirely, as the J5 has been on Nougat (7.0) prior to this release. The new ROM also updates Samsung Experience (the company's skin that has replaced TouchWiz for the Galaxy line of smartphones) to version 9.5. The baseband version for the 8.1 update is J530FXXU2BRH5, and its security patch level is August 2018.

On the other hand, the most recent reports indicate that only those 2017 J5s belonging to users in India and Poland have received this update. Therefore, those who want to keep their Galaxy J5 from that year may have to hold out a while longer for their chance to run this 8.1-based software.

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