[Carrier OTA brings night mode] US Unlocked Samsung Galaxy Note 9 July update rolling out, no camera night mode yet

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on August 2, 2019) follows:

The 10th generation Samsung Galaxy Note is almost around the corner, but that does not mean that Note 9 is completely abandoned by the Korean OEM. The phone (or should I say phablet?) is getting plenty of features from newer devices, such as Call and SMS Continuity (CMC).

Another much anticipated feature is the dedicated night mode in stock camera app. The Exynos powered global Galaxy S10 units got it first, which was later rolled out to the US carrier locked variants (except T-Mobile).

Samsung backported this functionality to the Galaxy Note 9 series back in June. Similar to the S line up, the non-US models received the camera night mode as a part of June security patch (build CSF9).

Unfortunately, the US Galaxy Note 9 units were not blessed with the same treatment back then. They didn’t receive the July security patch, while the international unlocked models got them at the beginning of last month.

Here comes an interesting twist in the scenario. Two days ago, an alleged Samsung engineer (u/LTEX90) announced the arrival of July security patch for the carrier unlocked Snapdragon Galaxy Note 9 (model number: SM-N960U1) in the corresponding subreddit.

Wait a minute! How come the unlocked units get it before the carrier branded variants? Seems that we are experiencing the exact same scenario that happened with Galaxy S9/S9+ earlier.

According to the person, camera night mode did not make it in this build. Interestingly, T-Mobile SIM owners will not get this particular update for the following reason:

Here is what I can say: T-Mobile engineers have been giving us extremely delayed responses to our software certification requests. They prevented us from pushing the May update because band 71 had performance issues in few test units. I am assuming that the merger has something to do with this.

(Source)

Apparently some Galaxy Note 9 owners in the US already received the July update on their phones, although wider rollout may take some more time. The size of the incremental OTA is around 180 MB, and there is nothing new apart from the updated security patch.

We have taken a look at the internal update tracker index of Samsung and successfully spotted the update (build tag CSF9). The OTA comes with a new bootloader (v2), thus you can not go back to earlier builds (with v1 bootloader) after a successful installation.

US readers, have you received the July security update on your Galaxy Note 9 yet? Let us know by commenting below.

Update 1 (August 3)

Verizon becomes the first US carrier to push July security patch in the form of System Update 10 for Galaxy Note 9 (still not listed in their update tracker).

Surprise! Night mode is finally here with this OTA – as mentioned by several users.

Update 2 (August 7)

After Verizon, AT&T is rolling out the July security patch along with dedicated camera night mode for Galaxy Note 9 and S9 series. Details here.

Update 3 (August 12)

After Verizon and AT&T, T-Mobile is now bringing the long-anticipated camera night mode along with QR code scanner and July security patch to Galaxy Note 9. Take a look at this article for further info.

Update 4 (August 13)

Sprint is now rolling out the July OTA to Galaxy Note 9 devices, and it of course includes the Night mode. Details here.

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