According to Samsung’s security bulletin, the January security patch for its Android-powered Galaxy smartphones and tablets contains fixes for more than 60 vulnerabilities. The majority of those are from Google. But there are a few Samsung-exclusive fixes as well, with many of them being “critical” ones. In short, this is an important update that you’d want to install right away. If you’re using the Galaxy A71 5G in the US, you should be receiving this update in the coming days if you haven’t already. The update is currently available to the carrier-locked variants of the phone on Sprint and T-Mobile networks, SamMobile reports. The rollout should reach other carrier operators in no time. Unlocked Galaxy A71 5G units should also soon join the party. The new firmware version for the phone is A716USQU6DVA2.
Galaxy A71 5G receives a two-month-old security update
Samsung is usually the fastest Android OEM when it comes to releasing new security updates to its devices. Perhaps it has been unbeaten in this race for over a year now. The company has made a habit of beginning the rollout even before the new month has arrived. So the Galaxy A71 5G receiving the January SMR in March is not quite Samsung-like. It has already released the March security update for the Galaxy S22 phones. The mid-ranger should have at least picked up the February SMR with this update, if not March. That said, US carrier-locked smartphones are often late to software update parties since carriers individually test and verify new software packages before rolling them out to the public. These tests may take several days and weeks sometimes. So this delay could be from the carriers and not Samsung. But if not, then this is disappointing stuff from Samsung. The Galaxy A71 5G is also pending the Android 12-based One UI 4.0 update. Launched with Android 10 on board in April 2020, the device received the Android 11 update last year. We will let you know when Samsung begins the Android 12 rollout for the two-year-old mid-range smartphone.
