Samsung J2 pro will not update software?

[HarryC]

My Samsung J2 pro (SM-J250G, 2018) will not update past Android 7.1.1.

I have a banking app that tells me it will soon need version 8.0 or above to operate.

I'm not overly familiar with the software stuff, does it seem right that the phone would reach a point where it won't keep updating to new software (2018 phone seems a bit recent to have given up after 7.1.1, I have a 2016 budget Samsung tablet that went to 8.1.0).

If so, is there anything I can do about it without having to go to a new phone?

 

[Dannydet]

https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_j2_pro_(2018)-8904.php
Looks like this can update to 8

 

[ocnbrze]

who is your provider?

 

[HarryC]

who is your provider?

Telstra, in Australia

 

[Hadron]

It's certainly possible that a low-end device might not have received any updates. All phones stop getting updates at some point, and budget devices stop getting them sooner. Samsung have recently become quite good with updates for their higher-end devices and even mid-rangers, but it's possible that a 2018 budget device that was only released in some regions might have been neglected.

But to check, I looked on Sammobile.com to see whether such an update existed. They list 2 SM-J250G variants for Australia, which they call OPP and XSA (neither of those obviously says "Telstra" to me). Both are showing 7.1.1 as the most recent firmware version. In fact, contrary to what GSMArena says, I haven't found any SM-J250 variant in any country where anything higher than 7.1.1 is available (the search interface doesn't let me look at a list of all variants in all countries, so I've just tried half a dozen or so, but it's the same story with all of them). So to be honest it's not looking good, especially since Android 8 came out in 2017 (so before the J2 Pro was released, though again it's not uncommon for lower-end devices to be released with older OS versions) - if they have not released an update by now it doesn't seem very likely (though my old Note 10.1 tablet did receive a surprise OS update after a 2 year gap - Sammy can be capricious about these things!).