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Updating Unlocked GSM Nexus S

My friend has a Nexus S she is using on AT&T. It's an international unlocked version running 2.3.3.

Is there a way for her to get a newer official firmware without being rooted?
I'm not exactly sure how Google does the updating for their Nexus line, if it's done by IMEI, or carrier, or country code or what. But I have an unlocked Nexus S bought here in Canada and it has been updated a few times over the air. Whenever I check it in Settings, it always says it's up to date, but if I just ignore it, new updates appear on their own. I'm on v2.3.6 right now which is the most recent version for I9020A models like mine.

I presume your friend has the same I9020A as AT&T uses the same frequency bands as the main carriers in Canada? If so, then either the phone will update when it's ready on its own (depending on how the phones check for updates), or you can download an update zip to the phone and restart it in recovery mode to update from the zip file manually. Look for update threads here and you should find a link to a v2.3.6 update file and how to do it.
 
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