On our site we continually tell you about the updates that different manufacturers release for their devices. Many of these updates include major improvements, while others are only intended for bug fixes or security improvements. Samsung is one of the firms that launches the most updates for their terminals, and even more so now that they have extended the operating system for their latest terminals from the Galaxy S10 series to three years.
All these firmware versions are different from each other, and as we say, they have a different goal. When our Samsung smartphone receives the notice of a new update, it is accompanied by a software version, which is a kind of numbers and letters difficult to understand with the naked eye. However, this code has a specific meaning for Samsung.
How to read Samsung updates
There are brands like Xiaomi, Huawei, Realme or Apple itself, they have a simpler update code. However, Samsung used one of the longest that we see in the Android landscape, but that makes sense once we break it down part by part. If you’ve ever wondered what all those numbers and letters mean, here’s the answer. In order to analyze an update, we have taken as an example one of the most recent updates for the Galaxy S20 Ultra: G988BXXU4BTH5
The type of model
In the firmware version, the first part, referred to in this case as “G988B” is the model number of the Galaxy S20 Ultra. It is possible that in other regions a “G988F” is seen as a variant of the different versions that are marketed. For example, if we had a Galaxy M31 in hand, we could see something like “M315F” in this part.
The region code
It is the part referenced as “XX”, the international or European version of the device is indicated . Companies from different countries have different codes, such as the US, South Korea and China.
The bootloader version
According to Samsung’s security policy, you cannot downgrade the bootloader . This means that if we are on the U4 version, the update will never reference a U3. This is what the “U4” that we see in the firmware code means.
Android version
The letter “B” found in our example indicates the main operating system update . Letter A would be the first update, B the second, and so on. However, there are exceptions such as the letter Z, which indicates that we are in a beta version.
Current year
The eleventh letter of the code, that is, the letter “T”, corresponds to the current year in which the update is released. The letter T is for 2020, as the letter Q was for 2017, the letter R for 2018, or the letter S for 2019.
Launch month
The letter “H” or the twelfth of the code, lets you know in which month the firmware was released . In the case of Samsung, we know that they start with the letter “A” for January, “B” for February, and so on. Therefore, the letter “H” refers to the month of August.
Building firmware
The construction of a stable firmware consists of several phases. Software engineers reflect that effort with a number, which indicates the number of times the firmware has been built. In the case of our example, we see a “5”.