ICS on the E4GT - Initial Observations

[Ogre840]

So far it seems from the XDA thread that GPS is about 50/50 if it will work or not. I installed Caulkin's rom today, and unfortunately I'm in the bad 50% with no GPS.

GPS Status wont even show satellites visible, let alone lock on.

Other than that, very nice, no other issues so far. Data speed is the same (unfortunately that means bad, but not worse. Haven't actually tried to load any sites) and I did have a problem getting Chrome2Phone working, but a reboot solved that.

Can't wait for the next leak, or official version

 

[Titus37]

Jay, thanks a lot for your report. I'm definitely looking forward to the official update.

 

[qfnol31]

Battery life isn't too bad if I keep the GPS off. Not like on my ROM with my underclock and undervolt scripts running, but respectable. I'm at 45% right now with 10 hours off the charger and 1.5 hours of screen on time.

Yeah I tried he stock launcher. I don't really care for it. If you like it though you'll really like Trebuchet. It's the stock launcher but with extra features.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

This made me go back and check all my app settings. Come to find out, Read it Later was on push sync.

After using this ROM for the last few days I'm still very happy with it. Ice Cream Sandwich looks great, especially in the optimized apps. They need to fix touch sensitivity on the screen, but I have no plans to go back to EL29.

EDIT: New bug. My keyboard doesn't work well on websites.

 

[JayWill]

Updated today thinking it was Ics rolling out but nope nada. rip.

I updated the OP for a bit more clarity. This is an early unofficial build that can only be obtained by manually flashing your phone's firmware.

 

[Night Train]

Here's my Burning Question:

With the ICS upgrade, WILL MY GALAXY S2 BE ABLE TO GRAB AND HOLD A GPS SIGNAL SO THAT GOOGLE NAVIGATION WILL WORK RELIABLY AND CONSISTENTLY??

That is the one weak spot of this otherwise great smartphone.

 

[dtm_stretch]

Here's my Burning Question:

With the ICS upgrade, WILL MY GALAXY S2 BE ABLE TO GRAB AND HOLD A GPS SIGNAL SO THAT GOOGLE NAVIGATION WILL WORK RELIABLY AND CONSISTENTLY??

That is the one weak spot of this otherwise great smartphone.

That isn't just your burning question, a lot of people are having this issue. As stated before, about 50% of user's GPS work on the leaks. This will probably change before the release.

 

[jfenton]

Ever think that perhaps it's the software and not the phone?

 

[qfnol31]

I just discovered that the magenta notification light works with Handcent. I don't think it worked before, though I could be wrong.

 

[prown01]

Download GPS status, it's worked great for me in solving my GPS problems

 

[Lucki]

My gps has been flawless from the start. Looking forward to ICS mostly ICS roms.

 

[acadialover]

newbie question
HOw come our phone won't be the ICS blue but a dull grey?

 

[MannyZ28]

newbie question
HOw come our phone won't be the ICS blue but a dull grey?

The final look is all up to Samsung.

 

[JayWill]

Yeah Samsung has opted to keep most if not all of their Touchwiz theme, for better or for worse.

 

[dtm_stretch]

Yeah Samsung has opted to keep most if not all of their Touchwiz theme, for better or for worse.

I don't know if this is true, I mean if you were a developer wouldn't you leave the cosmetics till last? I would make sure everything works then worry about changing the colors to blue. I think they will keep tw launcher 4.0 though but they will probably change the color from green to blue.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

 

[MannyZ28]

I don't know if this is true, I mean if you were a developer wouldn't you leave the cosmetics till last? I would make sure everything works then worry about changing the colors to blue. I think they will keep tw launcher 4.0 though but they will probably change the color from green to blue.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

No doubt there will be changes between what we've seen and we're getting. Samsung does seem to make an effort to let ICS shine through a little bit as evident by the lock screen and by the phone answer and alarm dismiss screens.

Only time will tell, hopefully it won't be too much longer. Seeing the difference between FB09 and FB17 is encouraging, they seem to be making rapid progress. Maybe another rom will leak this weekend?

 

[JayWill]

I don't know if this is true, I mean if you were a developer wouldn't you leave the cosmetics till last? I would make sure everything works then worry about changing the colors to blue. I think they will keep tw launcher 4.0 though but they will probably change the color from green to blue.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

Normally I would agree with you dtm, as what you say does make a lot of sense. But I use the International GS2 as a proxy for what's going to happen on our phone, and they have seen 8 ICS build leaks, with the first on Dec 20th and the last on Feb 9th. The International GS2 is well ahead of our phone on ICS development, and will almost certainly see an official update before we do. I guess my point is, if Samsung was going to theme more stock ICS into their Touchwiz ICS ROM, I think we would have seen it by now for that phone. Unless they're saving it to the last minute with a big "SURPRISE!" heh. Wishful thinking.

For those willing to root and flash custom ROMs and themes, it's a non-issue really. Overstew and ssconceptz already have an amazing ICS theme for the stock ICS ROM. When it's done and with the right launcher, you will barely be able to tell it's a Touchwiz ROM. Also, assuming CM9 comes to pass for our phone, we'll have a full AOSP option. But for your average owner, I suspect what we're seeing now is going to be very close to what is officially released. I personally think Touchwiz is nice looking, but it's disappointing that they didn't build more of the ICS look into the updated ROM and launcher.

 

[dtm_stretch]

Normally I would agree with you dtm, as what you say does make a lot of sense. But I use the International GS2 as a proxy for what's going to happen on our phone, and they have seen 8 ICS build leaks, with the first on Dec 20th and the last on Feb 9th. The International GS2 is well ahead of our phone on ICS development, and will almost certainly see an official update before we do. I guess my point is, if Samsung was going to theme more stock ICS into their Touchwiz ICS ROM, I think we would have seen it by now for that phone. Unless they're saving it to the last minute with a big "SURPRISE!" heh. Wishful thinking.

Haha you are totally right and I thought about using the international GSII as a counter argument. I am optimistic though that samsung will pull through on this, if samsung doesn't encorporate ICS into TW then they are almost completely defeating ICS. The only difference the average user will see between gingerbread and ICS is a different settings menu. You are probably right, I do have wishful thinking lol.


Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

 

[dtg755]

realistically, they probably won't change Touchwiz too much because it wouldn't make sense from their perspective. They already have Touchwiz on all our phones and people are used to it. Most consumers aren't like us and would flip if their phone completely changed after an update.

 

[JayWill]

Only time will tell, hopefully it won't be too much longer. Seeing the difference between FB09 and FB17 is encouraging, they seem to be making rapid progress. Maybe another rom will leak this weekend?

FB21 just leaked yesterday. I flashed it but have seen no noticeable changes from FB17. If you want to keep an eye on build versions, just pull up the RDF page and change the number in the build version to the day of the week. That will tell you that a leak may be imminent (or not, you never know).

So, http://device.sprintpcs.com/Samsung/SPH-D710/FB21.rdf is the latest.

Changing 21 to 22, 23, or 24 (days of the month in February ... F=2012, B=February) come up with a 404 Not Found error, so it means no new builds were posted. When a new RDF does hit, a leak usually follows a few days later, if at all, but the spigot has been pretty wide open lately. Hopefully they don't call in a plumber.

Edit - A new RDF hit today, so 24 will now bring up a page.

 

[dtm_stretch]

realistically, they probably won't change Touchwiz too much because it wouldn't make sense from their perspective. They already have Touchwiz on all our phones and people are used to it. Most consumers aren't like us and would flip if their phone completely changed after an update.

Well true but twlauncher was overhauled pretty good between froyo and gingerbread. I don't know how many guys here had the og epic but the twlauncher on froyo sucked big time, I actually run the stock tw launcher on my phone now. If it wasn't made by samsung and was a 3rd party launcher I bet it would be successful in the market.