I have run into some issues with gradlew failing to run in my nativescript application. People have told me that it's a gradle issue and I need to update it, but wherever I search I see instructions for updating gradle using android studio. But I've just installed my SDKs using the sdkmanager and avdmanager. Is there any way to update gradle using them? I don't want to update my emulator images etc. only gradle.
When you update android studio you should be able to keep settings from past versions I've been using android studio on the same computer for 3 to 4 years and all my old images/ SDKs are still there, plus if you update grade without updating android studio the grade may not be recognized by that version of android studio. If I was in your place I would update android studio to the latest stable version.