Also if you do a but of research, you'll find that the bricking bug was discovered BEFORE the official ICS update started to roll out (and on unofficial ROMs/kernels), so ask yourself, would a gigantic and multi national corporation like Samsung, continue to roll out updates across millions of notes worldwide KNOWING about this issue? That would potentially lead to a MOUNTAIN of notes being returned for repair under warranty at great cost to Samsung? I very much doubt it!
Actually, I have done quite a bit of research on the XDA developers forum and it is true that nobody has confirmed that the official Note ICS firmware has the problem, but nobody has explicitly excluded the possibility either. What I also found out was that the problem lies in the eMMC chip itself (part of the phone), or at least certain versions of it. Version 0x19 is known to be bad and 0x25 and above known to be good with versions in between being suspect (I have 0x1A). See
here if you want to check your version number.
I would assume that Samsung are taking the chance that of the small percentage of phones using the 0x19 chipset, only a percentage will brick, making the replacement with the bug fixed chipset not too expensive.
And finally let me add that it doesn't matter how you aquired your note. The device has been out for less than its available warranty period which means ALL current notes are warranted, all Samsung needs to verify this is your phones IMEI, no receipt of purchase should be necessary. I have had many second hand purchased phones repaired with no receipt, because the phone had not been out for as long as the warranty period.
Yes, this occurred to me too, but I would prefer not to be without my Note for a month while I send it off for repair. Gingerbread works just fine for me and apparently ICS does not bring much (I need) to the table.
My note is my baby. I love it. I would not have risked mine without being sure. But this is just my advice, I can only make recommendations, but I have responded to many posts in these forums were people have been having issues with ICS saying 'do a factory reset' and everyone who has done it has reported back that their phone now runs like a dream.
Ok, I don't have all the facts myself due to the fact that I don't have the time to dig them up. This is why I was hoping that you had received definitive confirmation that the official release was safe. Since even the effected phone/firmware combinations can be reset or reflashed many times before the problem appears, your above evidence is not rock solid. There is also
this report of someone bricking their Note with an ICS update (although they do not say that it was the official update, so this is not evidence either).
Ok, I will continue to wait and stay with Gingerbread.
Regards,
Eric Ritchie.
