ironass
Extreme Android User
I have finally crossed over to Ice Cream Sandwich, (ICS). There... I’ve said it!
The background
Regular Android Forum members will know that I have held out making the move from my tried and trusted Gingerbread platform, running CheckROM RevoHD v6 with JKay theme and DeLuxe Settings. In fact, for me, this combination proved so good and useful that, apart from updating to the latest modem release and either Siyah or NEAK kernels, I stayed with this combination for 4 or 5 months.
I certainly was not tempted by the early custom ROM leaks of ICS from January onwards and the attendant problems, trials and tribulations that came with them. Neither was I that enthusiastic about the first official releases of ICS, for the same reasons. One developer labelled these as, “less than perfect” and so they were. One only has to look at the General SGSII forum for the last 8 weeks to see that there were problems with the early releases of ICS.
I think it was our very own Slug on here, when asked when he would change to ICS, said, “when it is 100% stable and suitable for daily use and the source code is released”. A sentiment that I shared wholeheartedly.
Three things persuaded me to try ICS.
1. The source code was released by Samsung.
2. The improvements in ICS over the last 2 months.
3. Flooding, locally, that cut off two of my favourite pubs.
Preparing for the move to ICS
Having read everything on the forum about ICS, since its first appearance, and realising that this was not just an update but a change of platform. I knew that the only safe and sure way to do this was to do a complete wipe of the phone and internal SD card to get rid of any Gingerbread traces.
With that in mind I set about making copious back-ups of everything... just in case. I copied my Contacts to the external SD card. I synced Contacts and Calendar to my Google account. I ensured that my app’s were sync’d with the Play Store. I made a Titanium backup to the external SD card, likewise with a CWM, nandroid, backup. I made sure that I backed up my effs file. I even copied these backup’s to my computer, along with the entire contents of my external SD card, which holds my photo’s, video’s and music... just to be on the safe side.
The move from Gingerbread to ICS.
Having downloaded the ICS ROM that seemed the most reliable and met my needs, AndyX, I also made sure that I had copies of the CF-Root kernel, to re-root my phone after flashing, as well as the latest modem and Siyah and NEAK ICS kernels.
I then erased my internal USB storage and did a Factory reset on the phone. I then flashed the AndyX ROM from my external SD card in Recovery and rebooted. After setting the time, auto sync, I declined the automatic restore option and signed in to my Google account. I then went into the Play Store and downloaded Titanium Backup and selected the batch restore of my app’s, with settings, but not system data. I enabled automatic restore in settings and my contacts, calendar, etc; were re-installed and apart from a few Play Store app updates, I was good to go.
Everything seemed to be working OK and I was pleased with the results.
Then the fun started!
The problems!
I began to get freezes. The browser would not connect. Wi-Fi was causing problems. I was getting warnings. The phone became sluggish. My battery usage went through the roof. In short, it seemed that everything that I had read about ICS and the problems that people were encountering, were coming true. I deleted caches. I deleted data. I re-downloaded app’s. I even reflashed AndyX ROM. All to no avail. As soon as one problem appeared to be fixed... another would show up.
The solution.
In desperation I turned to Hawker, who had initially persuaded me to switch to ICS and AndyX. With a constant flow of PM’s over that weekend, we tried to sort out the myriad problems that I was experiencing. In the end Hawker put the scenario to the developer of AndyX, adesirello, who immediately came back with the suggestion that I should first flash a stock ICS ROM before moving on to a custom ROM. His reasoning being that I needed the ICS base and file structure in place before loading a custom ROM on.
So, back to square one and flashed the stock, XEU, LP7, UK ROM on to the phone and re-rooted... and what a difference!
I actually liked the stock ROM. It had colourful, easy to identify, icons... particularly useful for someone who wears reading glasses and doesn’t want to, or is unable to, put them on every time they want to use the phone. The stock ROM for the SGSII is also primarily green as opposed to the Galaxy Nexus ICS ROM and a lot of custom ROM’s, which are dark blue against a black background. Not very good for my needs.
The stock ROM was much better than I expected. I missed the Quick Panel settings that AndyX offered and which allowed me to have 14 or 15 toggle icons in the drop down notification menu. However, I soon found a stand-alone, green, version of this and flashed it to my phone. With a few other app’s and mod’s added, I soon had a phone that I could work with and went some of the way to alleviate my longing for JKay themes and DeLuxe Settings. Since I am a big fan of SPBShell 3D, I wasn’t too bothered about the ICS TW launcher or Nova and Apex, the last two of which I could have downloaded anyway.
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong, AndyX is a really good ROM but for the reasons mentioned above, the stock ROM was much easier for me to see and use with its well laid out menu’s and white on black, Roboto, font, colourful, easy to see, icons it is a winner for me.
Since I do not use a lot of stock items such as Messaging, Email, Gmail, video player, Music Player, preferring instead, Handcent, K-9 Mail, MX Player and PowerAmp plus SPBShell 3D, not to mention a few mod's from good old Hawker, I felt that the stock ROM was as good as any to tide me over until CheckROM v7 and JKay themes are eventually released.
I have since flashed the stock LP8 and, yesterday, the new LPD stock ROM which I’m finding to be an improvement in terms of speed and scrolling. Coupled with this ROM I have Siyah 2.3.4 with ExTweaks and NSTools configured for battery life and have frozen a lot of bloatware which means I am getting battery life now that is approaching my Gingerbread configuration. The new LPW modem is giving me as good a signal as LPS so far, although I need to test this more.
I know it may be considered heresy to extol the virtues of the stock ROM on the All Things Root forum but to get the ROM to the way I like it, or as near as possible, I had to be rooted for some of the mod’s.
All I will say is... do not discount the stock ROM just because it is... a stock ROM.
Home Screen
Toggles
SPBShell 3D
Settings
Dial pad
The background
Regular Android Forum members will know that I have held out making the move from my tried and trusted Gingerbread platform, running CheckROM RevoHD v6 with JKay theme and DeLuxe Settings. In fact, for me, this combination proved so good and useful that, apart from updating to the latest modem release and either Siyah or NEAK kernels, I stayed with this combination for 4 or 5 months.
I certainly was not tempted by the early custom ROM leaks of ICS from January onwards and the attendant problems, trials and tribulations that came with them. Neither was I that enthusiastic about the first official releases of ICS, for the same reasons. One developer labelled these as, “less than perfect” and so they were. One only has to look at the General SGSII forum for the last 8 weeks to see that there were problems with the early releases of ICS.
I think it was our very own Slug on here, when asked when he would change to ICS, said, “when it is 100% stable and suitable for daily use and the source code is released”. A sentiment that I shared wholeheartedly.
Three things persuaded me to try ICS.
1. The source code was released by Samsung.
2. The improvements in ICS over the last 2 months.
3. Flooding, locally, that cut off two of my favourite pubs.
Preparing for the move to ICS
Having read everything on the forum about ICS, since its first appearance, and realising that this was not just an update but a change of platform. I knew that the only safe and sure way to do this was to do a complete wipe of the phone and internal SD card to get rid of any Gingerbread traces.
With that in mind I set about making copious back-ups of everything... just in case. I copied my Contacts to the external SD card. I synced Contacts and Calendar to my Google account. I ensured that my app’s were sync’d with the Play Store. I made a Titanium backup to the external SD card, likewise with a CWM, nandroid, backup. I made sure that I backed up my effs file. I even copied these backup’s to my computer, along with the entire contents of my external SD card, which holds my photo’s, video’s and music... just to be on the safe side.
The move from Gingerbread to ICS.
Having downloaded the ICS ROM that seemed the most reliable and met my needs, AndyX, I also made sure that I had copies of the CF-Root kernel, to re-root my phone after flashing, as well as the latest modem and Siyah and NEAK ICS kernels.
I then erased my internal USB storage and did a Factory reset on the phone. I then flashed the AndyX ROM from my external SD card in Recovery and rebooted. After setting the time, auto sync, I declined the automatic restore option and signed in to my Google account. I then went into the Play Store and downloaded Titanium Backup and selected the batch restore of my app’s, with settings, but not system data. I enabled automatic restore in settings and my contacts, calendar, etc; were re-installed and apart from a few Play Store app updates, I was good to go.
Everything seemed to be working OK and I was pleased with the results.
Then the fun started!
The problems!
I began to get freezes. The browser would not connect. Wi-Fi was causing problems. I was getting warnings. The phone became sluggish. My battery usage went through the roof. In short, it seemed that everything that I had read about ICS and the problems that people were encountering, were coming true. I deleted caches. I deleted data. I re-downloaded app’s. I even reflashed AndyX ROM. All to no avail. As soon as one problem appeared to be fixed... another would show up.
The solution.
In desperation I turned to Hawker, who had initially persuaded me to switch to ICS and AndyX. With a constant flow of PM’s over that weekend, we tried to sort out the myriad problems that I was experiencing. In the end Hawker put the scenario to the developer of AndyX, adesirello, who immediately came back with the suggestion that I should first flash a stock ICS ROM before moving on to a custom ROM. His reasoning being that I needed the ICS base and file structure in place before loading a custom ROM on.
So, back to square one and flashed the stock, XEU, LP7, UK ROM on to the phone and re-rooted... and what a difference!
I actually liked the stock ROM. It had colourful, easy to identify, icons... particularly useful for someone who wears reading glasses and doesn’t want to, or is unable to, put them on every time they want to use the phone. The stock ROM for the SGSII is also primarily green as opposed to the Galaxy Nexus ICS ROM and a lot of custom ROM’s, which are dark blue against a black background. Not very good for my needs.
The stock ROM was much better than I expected. I missed the Quick Panel settings that AndyX offered and which allowed me to have 14 or 15 toggle icons in the drop down notification menu. However, I soon found a stand-alone, green, version of this and flashed it to my phone. With a few other app’s and mod’s added, I soon had a phone that I could work with and went some of the way to alleviate my longing for JKay themes and DeLuxe Settings. Since I am a big fan of SPBShell 3D, I wasn’t too bothered about the ICS TW launcher or Nova and Apex, the last two of which I could have downloaded anyway.
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong, AndyX is a really good ROM but for the reasons mentioned above, the stock ROM was much easier for me to see and use with its well laid out menu’s and white on black, Roboto, font, colourful, easy to see, icons it is a winner for me.
Since I do not use a lot of stock items such as Messaging, Email, Gmail, video player, Music Player, preferring instead, Handcent, K-9 Mail, MX Player and PowerAmp plus SPBShell 3D, not to mention a few mod's from good old Hawker, I felt that the stock ROM was as good as any to tide me over until CheckROM v7 and JKay themes are eventually released.
I have since flashed the stock LP8 and, yesterday, the new LPD stock ROM which I’m finding to be an improvement in terms of speed and scrolling. Coupled with this ROM I have Siyah 2.3.4 with ExTweaks and NSTools configured for battery life and have frozen a lot of bloatware which means I am getting battery life now that is approaching my Gingerbread configuration. The new LPW modem is giving me as good a signal as LPS so far, although I need to test this more.
I know it may be considered heresy to extol the virtues of the stock ROM on the All Things Root forum but to get the ROM to the way I like it, or as near as possible, I had to be rooted for some of the mod’s.
All I will say is... do not discount the stock ROM just because it is... a stock ROM.
Home Screen
Toggles
SPBShell 3D
Settings
Dial pad
