Samsung's Note 8.0 gets KitKat

Hrmm... dilemma time.

I've loved using my Note 8.  But Samsung's poorer upgrade cycle for tablets forced my hand to root it and put 4.3 on it.

Today, however, Samsung is offering the up new Kit Kat update on it.  Woohoo... 4.4 on all my devices now.  Legitimately!

(I've updated our database page to show that it now has the update... check it out to see which devices are due up next)

Only thing is ... Samsung won't let me on a rooted device.

Hrmm... do I unroot (checkout SkipSoft... they have a great toolkit for rooting and restoring) and then get the update?  Cass did a great article on it a while back:  http://www.androidcoliseum.com/2013/10/using-note-8-toolkit-to-get-ota-updates.html

Or should I just go through Kies and get the update?

I always forget ... if I go through Kies, does that wipe out my whole tablet, or just the recovery/root files?  Hrmm...

My battery's currently charging as I tried Kies already and it warned me it was too low.

I'll let you know once the battery's fully charged and give it a go!

Well.. flashed away via Kies and it says it's done.  All it did was remove my custom recovery and hence any SU binaries.  So, no root for me until we get an updated recovery for the device.  Which I'm fine with.

Now it's on Kit Kat.  I'm trying to stay positive as the first bit here it's really sluggish.  REALLY sluggish.  Giving it time to finish everything.

I've even had to turn down the animations as they're pretty slow.

What's new?

Not much that you'll really see.  Some updated look in the UI (see the round circles for the setting features?).  White notification tray font... S Planner looks a little different...

All the same, being on the latest edition is always a good thing.  So go ahead and check to see if you've got the update waiting in the device (Menu / About Device / Check for Updates) or plug it into Kies.