Just when I thought the Samsung Galaxy (GT-I7500 to its few friends) couldn’t disappoint any more… I discovered it could. Software updating (or rather the lack of it) adds a world of pain to the already disappointing experience.
A few weeks ago I blogged my excitement and then disappointment with the Samsung Galaxy - its classy looks and great screen on the plus side, its dire battery life and glacial camera on the overwhelming negative side. And that was that. I enjoyed the screen a little more, but rarely dared to stray far from a power supply.
But then Peter Soden (@frontieruk) alerted me to a number of Galaxy owners who had updated their firmware and improved the battery life. Hoorah! Samsung had redeemed themselves.
Because it’s not a ‘Google Experience‘ handset, I grudgingly installed the PC-only desktop suite on the emergency PC I otherwise keep hidden and fired up the process.
And then I stopped.
Because the software supplied in the box with the phone says the Galaxy isn’t recognised.
I tweaked and checked some settings, but the PC suite was quite adamant… no. So I gave up on using the core features of the application and moved onto trying a firmware update.
This too was less than successful. It produced a very similar message…
It seems the users that have managed the update are either outside the UK or using hacked / homebrew firmware updates… O2 tell me that no official update is available yet, but one ‘is coming’. This is great, but not much help to UK users who - right now - have severely buggy devices and only this helpful message on the Samsung ‘Support’ site:
"It is broken, but you can't update it so don't try" - Samsung giving some world-class customer service
And I’m not alone in my frustrations… various discussion boards are filling up with frustrated Galaxy owners annoyed by bugs and angered by the cryptic messages from the PC Suite. The silence from Samsung and O2 UK as to why some geographies have updates and others don’t has only made matters worse.