Samsung is rolling out May security update (2020) to its Galaxy S20, Note 10, and Galaxy Fold

Samsung is rolling out the May 2020 security update to quite a few Samsung flagship phones including Galaxy S20, Galaxy Note 10, and Galaxy Fold. The new update was first released for the Samsung Galaxy S20 series, but the company has followed up shortly with updates for the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Samsung Galaxy Fold. Reports of this update first started surfacing a little earlier in the week.

According to SamMobile, the latest update for Galaxy S20 series arrives with version G98xxXXS2ATD5 and brings the latest May 2020 security patch. The update does not come with any new features or improvements. The update is currently rolling out in several countries in Europe for both the LTE and 5G models, and it should not be long before it starts making its way to other regions, including the United States.

Apart from a bump in the Android security patch level, the new build also introduces a new bootloader (v2), which is enough to prevent downgrade attempts via manual flashing. The official changelog does not mention anything other than the new security patches, which makes it rather distinct from the other two bug fix updates (ATD1 and ATD3) that arrived in April for these phones.

The Note 10 series update carries version N97xFXXS4CTD1 as reported by SamMobile. Compared to the last batch of updates, this one is quite small at around 170MB. This is not surprising after the feature-packed update the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ received just a couple of weeks back. That update brought many Galaxy S20 features including new camera functionality to the Note 10 and Note 10+ in addition to version 2.1 of One UI.

The Galaxy Fold, on the other hand, has received a pretty significant update. As per SamMobile in addition to May security patches, Samsung has backported various Galaxy S20 camera features, such as Pro mode in video recording, and adds multiple new camera modes to the Galaxy Fold. There is Single Take, which allows you to take a series of videos and still images with all of the rear cameras with a single tap.

There is Night Hyperlapse, which records timelapse videos with long exposure to create a light trail effect. The new build (F900FXXU3BTDD) also features the May 2020 security patches. This is the first OTA since the long-anticipated Android 10/One UI 2.1 update for the Galaxy Fold, and it is currently rolling out in France.

Long time Samsung users can attest to the slow update schedule followed by the company that results in waiting almost a year for significant version changes or being several months behind on security patches. However, something changed and the company is updating its devices faster than ever before, in some cases, it has even beaten Google to the punch.

Not only is this the first OEM to start delivering this month’s bulletin, but these are also the first few phones, full stop. Google’s Pixels are still gathering dust with the April patch, after all. Exaggeration aside, it is praiseworthy of Samsung to truly change things around from the days of TouchWiz and set a new standard with One UI. So far there are reports of this update appearing in several countries, so it should not be long before it reaches your device.

Samsung has yet to publish the details of the May 2020 security bulletin on their site. The updates are rolling out in batches, but you can skip the queue and download the new firmware packages directly from the Samsung update server using Frija.