Pokémon GO is not working on your Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini and the game is not available on “Amazon Fire” devices either? Do you need to buy a new smartphone? No, because we will show you how to get Pokémon GO running on seemingly incompatible devices.
Owners of a stylish Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini smartphone have a powerful device with the latest Android version, but they cannot enjoy Pokémon GO, as the mini phone is currently not supported by the game and we cannot download the app from the Play Store. A similar problem plagues owners of Amazon Fire devices as well as users of older devices like the good old S3. So what to do?
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The solution – Install the Pokémon GO app on S5 Mini or Amazon Fire yourself
If you have an S5 Mini or a Fire device, you don’t need to worry any further, because even if the official app store doesn’t help you, it is still possible! Your devices can handle the app performance-wise, and as always, when an app doesn’t work through the convenient app store, you can still get it running via manual installation. Proceed as follows:
- Download the Pokémon GO app as an APK file manually and transfer it to your smartphone.
- Go to Android settings and then to the “Security” sub-section.
- Go to “Device administration” and enable the option to install apps from “Unknown sources”.
- That’s it for the settings; exit the menu and select the directory where the Pokémon GO APK file is located.
- Tap on it and install the app.
Now everything should work, but you may need to manually reinstall the current version each time a new version of Pokémon GO is released.
What about my S3 or Windows Phone?
However, if you have an older Android device like the popular and powerful Samsung Galaxy S3, you are unfortunately out of luck. Pokémon GO only works from Android version 4.4., but unfortunately, the S3 in all its forms only supports the operating system up to version 4.3. An official update is not planned, so you will have to forgo Pokémon GO if you have an older Android device.
You might still be able to get it to work if you root your phone and install a custom ROM, but such actions can completely ruin your device and should only be done by experienced users. Things look even darker for users of Windows Phones, as the app does not work on them at all. However, Microsoft recently announced they will address the issue. You can find all the details in the news linked above.
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