All Samsung Galaxy Note 3 users in the region of India have a good reason to be happy today. Samsung decided that now is a good time to roll the official Lollipop update to Indian variants of Samsung Galaxy Note 3 devices.
Samsung has worked quite hard these weeks, providing software updates to a good number of devices. In the past, the tradition has been Snapdragon variants of the phones get the update first and then, much latter, it is time for Exynos variants.
But this hasn’t been the case lately. You can see this with the Galaxy S4 where Samsung released the Lollipop update for the Exynos Galaxy S4 GT-I9500 first and then for the Snapdragon GT-I9505. Now the tech giant is doing the same thing with the Galaxy Note 3.
The company has rolled out the official Android 5.0 Lollipop firmware update for all Galaxy Note 3 users in India. The model number of this variant is SM-N900 and comes with the Exynos octa chipset. Unfortunately, there is no news when the Snapdragon variant of the Note 3 will be able to get a taste of Lollipop.
If you have the device and live in India, there are a few ways to update it. You can install the firmware officially through two methods, or unofficially via Odin.
The first method is via OTA. This is the easiest and the quickest method of downloading and installing the Lollipop update on your Indian Galaxy Note 3. Go to Settings > About Phone and check for software updates. Sometimes, the notification does not appear. If this happens, install Kies tool, connect your phone to your PC and download the new firmware from your computer. If Kies does not show the notification either, you have to install it using Odin.
Odin is the official tool from Samsung that is used by its employees to revert devices to stock and flash the latest firmwares. Follow the guide below to get the latest version of Android on your Galaxy Note 3 India region.
How to flash N900XXUEBOB2 firmware update on Galaxy Note 3 India
Download required files
Getting Prepared
Make a full backup of your current Android version or individual apps, so if something goes wrong you can easily restore everything.
Enable USB Debugging from the Developer Options.
Make sure you have charged the battery to at least 80%.
Before starting with the flashing process, perform a full wipe and factory reset in the recovery.
Note: This firmware should be installed only on the SM-N900 Exynos variant of the Galaxy Note 3. Installing it on other variants might cause unexpected results, even bricking.
Flashing the firmware
- Connect your Galaxy Note 3 to the PC using a USB cable. Make sure the USB cable works properly and is not damaged.
- Turn the phone off and boot into download mode. To do so, press and hold the power, home and volume down buttons at the same time.
- Once in download mode, launch Odin from the PC.
- Extract the zip firmware file to receive a tar.md5 file.
- Click the PDA button on Odin and select the firmware.
- Click Start.
All you have to do now is to wait. The process will last for a few minutes so be patient. If Odin freezes, simply leave it as it is. Do not attempt to disconnect the phone from the PC without Odin saying that the firmware has been successfully installed. Have you already installed the new update? How has your experience been?