[uNi]

There's some effects missing here and there all over the OS, but nothing you'll miss really.

It just lacks in CPU power from what I've seen so far.

[finn4life]

QUOTE (Blackadder. @ Saturday, Apr 14 2012, 02:31)

Then root your phone and flash a custom ROM. Samsung's ICS for the SGS II is almost identical to Samsung's GB on the user's end, hell some people claim it even performs worse than GB. At least if you flash a ROM you'll get performance tweaks and extra features that make the update worthwhile.

I actually do not know what is involved in rooting your phone and what exactly it does.

Does anyone have IceCream Sandwich yet?

[Blackadder.]

Rooting your phone means you gain access to the root directory of the phone. This enables you to alter system files and use advanced apps that use root access to perform extra features. You can merely delete unwanted system apps via rooting (such as the pre-loaded carrier/manufacturer ones that are wasting resources) or install custom recoveries so you can flash entire new ROMs.

Yes it does void your warranty. And there is the chance you may brick your phone. However the SGS II is ridiculously simple to root and flash a custom firmware. The easiest way is just flashing a CF-Root Kernel which corresponds to your current kernel, which will also install ClockWorkModRecovery (pretty much essential for flashing custom ROMs). Once that is done you can boot into recovery and flash a custom ROM of your choice, and once done you will now be running a Custom ROM, Rooted Phone!

This link provides some information on how to root your phone. I used this method and it is pretty much fool proof, if you follow the instructions your phone should be 100% safe. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103399

[finn4life]

QUOTE (Blackadder. @ Tuesday, Apr 17 2012, 06:00)

Rooting your phone means you gain access to the root directory of the phone. This enables you to alter system files and use advanced apps that use root access to perform extra features. You can merely delete unwanted system apps via rooting (such as the pre-loaded carrier/manufacturer ones that are wasting resources) or install custom recoveries so you can flash entire new ROMs. Yes it does void your warranty. And there is the chance you may brick your phone. However the SGS II is ridiculously simple to root and flash a custom firmware. The easiest way is just flashing a CF-Root Kernel which corresponds to your current kernel, which will also install ClockWorkModRecovery (pretty much essential for flashing custom ROMs). Once that is done you can boot into recovery and flash a custom ROM of your choice, and once done you will now be running a Custom ROM, Rooted Phone! This link provides some information on how to root your phone. I used this method and it is pretty much fool proof, if you follow the instructions your phone should be 100% safe. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103399

Oh thanks for that, i actually do want to do but not right now, i don't think i want to try it, not interested in paying $64 a month for the next 18 months only to have a bricked phone.
Yes i know it is supposedly very safe but i might just wait until i am closer to the end of my phone plan and give it a shot then.
--
Good news though, i finally got samsungs sh*tty desktop integration program 'Kies' to work properly and it showed i had a firmware upgrade Yippee!
Bad news is it isn't detecting my device properly and i have to fiddle to get it to work!
--------

EDIT: Got it to work, now i have to back-up everything before update, it doesn't wipe the SD does it?

This post has been edited by finn4life on Monday, Apr 16 2012, 22:50

[Whiskey]

I just waited till my contract was over then rooted. The performance increase was unreal. This is on a two year old HTC Legend. It gives me a lease of new life until I can afford something higher range. Also, can you not re-flash the OEM rom to restore the warranty? Would they have known if you had already flashed it?

[Blackadder.]

I haven't heard about ICS rolling out to Australian devices yet so it might just be an incremental upgrade to Gingerbread or a minor driver update. Definately possible it is ICS though. Pretty sure it won't wipe the internal SD storage, but if it's anything like custom ROM's then it will wipe the internal data partition (used mainly for apps). Again not entirely sure about this as I didn't opt for an official update, probably best to do a quick Google.

I'd still recmmonend going the way of custom ROMs though, the better ones offer substantial improvements and tweaks over the official versions which helps get the most out of your phone (and means you don't have to run around looking for a powerpoint as often).

And yeah Whiskey you can reset the flash counter by flashing a OEM ROM. However Samsung (and possibly other manufacturers) incorporated a reset flash counter counter which tracks how many times you have reset the flash counter, so you need to use a small device known as a USB Jig which resets all counters. Of course the catch is it only works on Gingerbread kernels.

[finn4life]

QUOTE (Blackadder. @ Tuesday, Apr 17 2012, 11:40)

I haven't heard about ICS rolling out to Australian devices yet so it might just be an incremental upgrade to Gingerbread or a minor driver update. Definately possible it is ICS though. Pretty sure it won't wipe the internal SD storage, but if it's anything like custom ROM's then it will wipe the internal data partition (used mainly for apps). Again not entirely sure about this as I didn't opt for an official update, probably best to do a quick Google.

http://www.cnet.com.au/samsung-starts-brin...i-339333717.htm

One month ago this was on CNET.

QUOTE

Australian telcos Telstra and Vodafone have both listed the Ice Cream Sandwich update as "in testing" on respective update pages, with Telstra estimating an "early April" roll-out for this update to its customers.

I think this is it considering it is taking a long while to install.
--
EDIT: Dang, just a firmware update, got some updates on some apps, and some new samsung app things popped up, looking around Vodafone has gotten 4.0.
Telstra from what i have been reading on the telstra site is very very slow with updates and only do them when all their own apps are compatible.
I was also reading there that Telstra are very against rooting your phone.
--

EDIT Again.
Telstra's official status on the update, took some digging but after surfing through the site for some time (And finding my phone is now available in 4G after having it for 3 months) i found the status on all their phones and the ICS update.
They say late this month or early next month.

http://telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/mobile...es.html#tab-spf

This post has been edited by finn4life on Tuesday, Apr 17 2012, 01:47

[Blackadder.]

Yeah that's the most disappointing thing about Android. Manufacturers can take their sweet time making updates and then carriers hold them up for several months on top of that. But of course on the flipside, there's always custom ROMs.

[d4v1d]

@Finn
I don't even know why you want Samsung's touchwized ics. I've seen my dad using it and its pretty much crippled. Almost looks like GB IMO. Just get a custom ROM and flash away.

In other news, Samsung seems to be announcing their next Galaxy s phone on May 3.
Source

Does anyone know if the nexus line gets a new phone every year?

[Blackadder.]

So far that seems to be the case, the Nexus One/Galaxy Nexus came out the same year as the Nexus S depending on what region you're in. It's not too far fetched to expect a new Nexus device by the end of the year (likely being passed onto another manufacturer).

[finn4life]

QUOTE (d4v1d @ Tuesday, Apr 17 2012, 20:25)

@Finn I don't even know why you want Samsung's touchwized ics. I've seen my dad using it and its pretty much crippled. Almost looks like GB IMO. Just get a custom ROM and flash away. In other news, Samsung seems to be announcing their next Galaxy s phone on May 3. Source Does anyone know if the nexus line gets a new phone every year?

I like touchwiz, i don't see what all the complaints about it are i have no issues with it.

[Whiskey]

Serious problem guys. I flashed a ICS rom for my Legend, but when I was flashing the google apps zip, my phone got stuck in a bootloop and it just wont get out of it. Has my phone become totally and uterlly f*cked? I'm at a loss here. I can get into the bootloader, but I can't get into the clockwork mod one. Just the stock android.

Going to try use the 2.2 RUU, but I don't know if it'll be any use.

Think I fixed it, managed to get into Clockwork and do a re-flash. Should be working now.

This post has been edited by Whiskey on Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 23:06

[leik oh em jeez!]

Bit behind the times, but I just got an original Droid. I'm a little disappointed it doesn't support Terminal IDE, I was really hoping to be able to run htop.

[Blackadder.]

Well I was pretty bored tonight so I decided to dip my toes into ROM theming. I only swapped out a few icons to get a feel for it, and until I figure out what the hell I'm doing it probably won't be very serious. But yeah, Sense 4 status icons on my SGS II.

[Pico]

Had some hands on with the Droid Incredible 4G today. It was super tiny compared to the Galaxy Nexus. Amazing what .65" can do to the size of a device. The screen definitely seemed too small for me. But it was light and super responsive. The camera opened in a fraction of a second and there was no shutter lag. It also has a cool mode where it won't take a picture until everyone is smiling, at which point it takes it automatically. Neat!

Acer announced the A500 Iconia 10.1" tablet, which I had and have given to my mom, is getting a 4.0.4 update rolled out as we speak... sadly, it seems only Canadians are getting it for some damn reason. Honeycomb on that thing is quite glitchy and ICS sounds to be much more polished. Hopefully it is, for my mom's sake.

On a pretty much unrelated note, anyone seen Blackberry 10? The keyboard looks promising. It's got a much more intuitive auto-suggestion feature where it pops a word above the letter you're going to press, you just swipe up from that letter (eg, the letter "t" will have the word "the" above it) and it inserts it. The camera has a setting where it appears to take multiple shots and face detection. They showed an example where the guy smiled but the girl blinked, well the phone automatically picked up her face, tap it and you get a circle around it where you can rotate a slider to previous shots to get one before she blinked. It then, on the fly, inserts it in the photo smoothly over her blinking face. Should be pretty sharp.
I haven't seen much of the new UI, but the GUI itself looks impressive. I have a feeling Blackberry may become a contender, much more than Microsoft at least.

[Blackadder.]

You might want to take a look over on XDA, they have a downloadable update.zip you can flash for the Iconia A500 in recovery mode to manually update it to ICS. haven't tried it myself (on my stepmums tablet) but users seem to have a fair amount of success.

Speaking of new phones, what does everyone think of the new Galaxy S III?



Quad-core Exynos processor, 4.8 inch screen and a whole bunch of new software enhancements.

The front page of Engadget is pretty much covered with articles so if you're interested head on there (or just Google Galaxy S III). They've managed to tweak TouchWiz a bit so it actually looks pretty good now, they've gotten rid of the ugly grey backgrounds in places and used a duller blue for various menus which gives it a more refined look.

The phone's external look however I'm kind of iffy on. The button at the front looks kind of weird, and the back looks kind of awkward, but generally it's a pretty snazzy looking phone and I would love to get my hands on one just to try it at the bare minimum.

[kudoboi]

im gonna get the S3 even thou i just bought both the galaxy nexus and htc one x like lesser than 2 months ago

[finn4life]

Will ICS be able to utilize four cores? I know it can handle two.
Well they made it even bigger than the current SGS2 which is 4.5 inches and the SGS3 is at 4.8.

[Blackadder.]

To be honest I don't think the average user will notice much of a difference with a quad-core vs a dual-core except maybe in their battery life. The time it will make the most difference is in strenuous tasks like games, and of course the battery will drain even faster then. I imagine Google would of coded in support for quad-cores given that we haven't really seen a Tegra 3 or any Quad-core on a device that doesn't run ICS. I imagine Gingerbead could handle it too but Google mostlikely refined it for ICS.

As for the SGS II the international model is actually 4.3 inches. Various variants (mostly U.S carriers) bolstered the screen size up to 4.5 inches, and considering Samsung showed off the international model of the SGS III it's possible U.S carriers may boast ones that increase the size up to 4.9" or even 5".

[leik oh em jeez!]

QUOTE (Blackadder. @ Friday, May 4 2012, 13:38)

To be honest I don't think the average user will notice much of a difference with a quad-core vs a dual-core except maybe in their battery life.

Depends on the CPU really. In this situation I believe Samsung decided to go with the quad core vs an equally powerful dual core purely for marketing reasons. So in this case, you're right. The performance is going to be pretty much the same even during games, but battery life will suffer.