Updating old Samsung Galaxy tablet

[dannyboy75]

Hi,

I picked up a cheap Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2016 (SM-T230) from eBay recently, as I need something for my son to be able to watch Disney+ on during an upcoming long car journey.

Minimum Android OS version for Disney is apparently 5 (aka Lollipop), and from what I can see on the Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Tab_4_7.0) for this tablet, the latest OS for it is Lollipop so I thought it would be fine.

However, it's running 4.4.2 (Ice cream sandwich?!) and says no updates are available. I've tried updating it via Kies and Smart Switch too, but those suggest no updates are available either.

Am I missing something obvious (my Android knowledge is virtually zero), or am I out of luck?

thanks

[DanceswithUnix]

GSM Arena says 4.4.2, so I think you might be out of luck sorry.

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_gal...4_7_0-6251.php

[Jonj1611]

Maybe a custom rom might be the way forward?

[dannyboy75]

Thanks guys.

I did read some stuff about custom roms and rooting, but can't really be bothered to spend the time looking into it all if I'm honest! I used to JB my iPhones, but am just not familiar with Android stuff at all.

[DanceswithUnix]

Custom roms can be handy (I used to put custom roms on phones in the past) but IME streaming clients tend to detect the unlocked bootloader and refuse to work.

[dannyboy75]

Happily the eBay seller said I can return it, as the OS is so old I can't even use the Play Store properly - just lots of errors and crashes to home screen (presumably because it's using an outdated version of TLS or some such).

[dannyboy75]

Custom roms can be handy (I used to put custom roms on phones in the past) but IME streaming clients tend to detect the unlocked bootloader and refuse to work.

Yeah I used to enjoy jailbreaking my iPhones for some of the 3rd-party apps, but it became more and more of a headache as time went on. Some apps (esp. banking apps) had JB detection added, and wouldn't run until you removed the jailbreak.