The first Active variant in the flagship Samsung Galaxy S series came out in June 2013 following the launch of the Galaxy S4 in April of the same year. As it would become many years later, the Galaxy S4 Active was unveiled as an AT&T exclusive.
Fast forward to 2017, this exclusivity was broken following the launch of Samsung Galaxy S8 Active on multiple U.S. carriers. AT&T was joined by Sprint and T-Mobile in carrying the rugged variant of the S8 duo released earlier in the year.
Like other Active variants before it, the Galaxy S8 Active hasn’t been one of Samsung’s favorite kids when it comes to software updates. While the standard S8 and S8+ are always receiving new software updates every month, the Active variant doesn’t always get this luxury.
Case in point is where owners of the S8 Active on AT&T had to wait until mid-July to receive the update to Android Pie, when the same update started rolling out to the S8 and S8+ in March 2019.
The wait was even much longer for those using this same device on Sprint. Earlier this month, the Sprint firmware went live tagging along all the goodies of Android Pie alongside August security patches.
At the time, T-Mobile Galaxy S8 Active Pie update was still in development, although geeky users could still flash the Sprint ROM to their T-Mobile variant and get Pie ahead of the rest.
But as I write this, T-Mobile has started rolling out Android Pie to the Galaxy S8 Active that, unfortunately, includes July 2019 security patches and not the latest September patches we’ve seen rolling out to the Galaxy Note 10, A7 2018 and even the entry-level Galaxy A30.
And some Redditors had something to say about it:
Awesome, only took like 7 months.
Actually took 2 and a half month. Pie was released by Samsung to carriers for s8 active at the end of June.
Yes!! Finally!!!
The T-Mobile Galaxy S8 Active Pie update is not only available over the air, but also via Smart Switch. While the former channel has the updated firmware weighing in at about 1.7GB, the latter weighs nearly 3.8GB.
Whichever channel you choose to use, you’ll get the same Pie update with the same changes and features on your S8 Active, but do keep in mind that this will be the last major OS upgrade for this device. For details about Samsung Android 10 roadmap and devices, click here.
NOTE: We have more Samsung-related coverage here. You can also get more T-Mobile-related stuff here.
PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.
Hillary Keverenge
2105 Posts
Tech has been my playground for over a decade. While the Android journey began early, it truly took flight with the revolutionary Lollipop update. Since then, it's been a parade of Android devices (with a sprinkle of iOS), culminating in a mostly happy marriage with Google's smart home ecosystem. Expect insightful articles and explorations of the ever-evolving world of Android and Google products coupled with occasional rants on the Nest smart home ecosystem.
Next article View Article
