Excitement is building for the official Android Oreo release on the Galaxy Note 8. We detailed a leaked Oreo build for the Galaxy S8 and made a short tutorial on how to install it on your device. Now, there’s a newer Oreo build available for the Galaxy Note 8 as well. Both of these builds appear to be closer to the official release candidate than the official beta updates on the Galaxy S8.
The latest Note 8 firmware comes courtesy of prolific Samsung leaker mweinbach on Reddit. The Note 8 leaked firmware carries build number CRA2 and is only for the Snapdragon variant of the device. You can check if your Note 8 is eligible by heading to Settings –> About Phone and looking for the model number. Eligible Note 8 devices are model numbers SM-N950U and SM-N950U1, the US carrier and unlocked models.
It is worth noting that your phone must be running build BQL5 before sideloading the CRA2 firmware. If you’re interested in performing this yourself, the steps are identical to those we detailed for updating the Galaxy S8 to Oreo. Unfortunately, there are some major drawbacks to be aware of with this new build. Mostly importantly, if you flash CRA2, you cannot use Odin to return to Nougat or any earlier Oreo builds. The reason for this is that the bootloader is advanced with the CRA2 build. Several users are also reporting that this build is still in “Uncertified” status on the Google Play Store.
One thing is for sure, it looks like the official Oreo OTA is not far away for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8. With all of these leaked builds, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the official update roll out starting at the end of January. Are you excited for the official Oreo release on these Galaxy devices? Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried any of these leaked builds yourself!
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