At the January Unpacked event, where Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S25 lineup, it also teased Now Brief as part of the Galaxy AI features. Essentially, it provides personalized information and quick access to relevant apps or actions. However, some were deeply disappointed upon learning that it would remain exclusive to the Galaxy S25.
Everything was going smoothly until… someone managed to run it successfully on their Galaxy S23+. That’s when we realized Samsung might be enforcing, as my colleague puts it, “an arbitrary limitation.” Now, someone else has it running on their Galaxy S21 FE. Well, this is getting wild.
Someone’s running Now Brief on a Galaxy S21 FE… but wait, wasn’t it supposed to be a Galaxy S25 exclusive?
Someone on X claimed they flashed the Galaxy S25 Ultra system and got Now Brief running on their Galaxy S21 FE. (Disclaimer: We don’t recommend flashing system files on your Galaxy device. It could break your device, so don’t try it.) See, it’s not that flashing system files is the tricky part. It’s that a Samsung executive, in an earlier interview, claimed that older phones aren’t compatible with Now Brief.
i flashed s25 ultra system on my s21fe and pic.twitter.com/n10K9nmSYG
— Luminance (@Luminance_xs) March 31, 2025
She said the personal data engine that powers Now Brief requires “advanced chipsets and hardware.” She added that she was referring to the Galaxy S25 series with Snapdragon 8 Elite. Truthfully, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is a major leap. But then… how come Now Brief is working smoothly on these years-old devices?
In a previous write-up, SammyGuru writer Josh Skinner argued that “this indicates Samsung placed an artificial limitation to make Now Brief an S25 series exclusive feature.” So, this just proves that even though older devices don’t officially support Now Brief, they seem very capable of running the newer features. Maybe Samsung should just extend Now Brief to devices running One UI 7.0. Or, at least the S series phones (including FE).
