Android is the most widely used mobile operating system worldwide. A large number of different devices adopt Google's operating system although, from the beginning, the company has a problem that is practically impossible to solve: fragmentation.
Although all devices use the same operating system, manufacturers usually customize Android with their own themes, applications and, internally, with different configurations and proprietary drivers from their manufacturers for the phone's hardware. Therefore, the updates depend largely on the manufacturers and, when Google publishes a new version of Android can take months or even years until the terminals are updated at best as most are obsolete and lose support of updates by the manufacturer leaving this discontinued.
While a smartphone has a useful life within the support, there are several ways to update it. In this tutorial we will talk about the main ways to update an Android smartphone to check the latest available version and be able to use the device as best as possible.
How to update Android using the company's proprietary software
LG, Samsung, HTC and other manufacturers have to adapt Android updates to their corresponding devices and send them through their own update clients.
To update the devices through this application we must download the proprietary software from its web page in question, install it on our computer and connect the device through the USB cable so that the updates are automatically searched and downloaded.
Generally these updates also end up coming through OTA, although it is advisable to use the updater whenever possible and, above all, it is essential to format and reinstall the ROM in our terminal.
How to update our device via OTA
Some devices like LG have their own software updater installed as an application from which we will look for updates and install them. Others have simply modified the Android OTA updater to receive those updates from there.
Depending on the brand and model of the smartphone, the way to update it will be one or the other, although, in general, the updater can be accessed from Settings> Phone information> Updates.
This method is useful, especially in Nexus devices since they usually receive in a few hours the updates published by Google. Automatically the device will show a notification (thanks to the GCM service) as soon as it is available for our device and, from that notification, we will be able to download the update and install it without losing the data of our phone.
Update Android from Recovery, Custom Rom, etc.
The most advanced users probably have the bootloader unlocked and a recovery installed on their systems. From this recovery you can install updates (through an update.zip file), new versions of Android (corresponding to the rom that we have installed at that moment) and new roms like Cyanogen Mod, ideal for example, for when a smartphone is it is not supported to be able to update "unofficially" to a more recent version that may be available from the manufacturer.
