• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

So... how good is ICS on Note?

J

johnb41

Well-Known Member
I'm on the AT&T version of the note, so it's not yet available for me. But I'm curious to those international users who finally have ICS... is it any good? Does it speed up the note, and/or make it smoother and snappier? Is it a worthy upgrade from Gingerbread?
 
Friend of mine has a custom build of ICS on hers. Honestly, I think it's causing her more headaches than solutions. TouchWiz really doesn't look any different than the GB build. Looks to be a lot of problems for the SGS2 upgrade so I'm hoping the Note doesn't experience those a well.
 
i've noticed its smoother. Apart from that twice the phone has stopped working when receiving and making calls, the nav has locked up taking it off the dock (need to exit first), and sorry but battery is not as good as LC1 GB

Copy and paste function soooo much better on ICS than GB.
 
I have a custom build, the criskelo v2. It's great. All works ok. It crashes occasionally, a few fc's as with Gingerbread. Speed probably same as GB; nice and quick - quick enough for me.

Lots of improvements. Nice packet data monitor built in, excellent copy function for text (the only reason i ditched GB for ICS in the first place), ICS camera is cool with a slider for ZOOM and really cool panorama feature. Reboot feature when switching off, which is nice, one handed keyboard. Better contacts system.

I'd really need to compare side by side, but anyhow, i don't miss GB at all.
 
The touchwiz ui looks exactly as it did on gingerbread but I'm using apex launcher and I'm loving ICS! :-)

Edit: I hope samsung decides to implement the s voice feature into a later version of ICS.
 
I had a lot of problems at first, especially when using native touch whiz launcher. Once I cleared the cache in Mobile Odin for the CMW ICS German release, it ran a hell of a lot smoother. I installed Nova Launcher and it made a huge difference. You won't get the same look as Nexus users but with Nova, it's a lot cleaner with home page animations and a lot more ability to customize.

At first I thought my battery was dying a lot faster, but it's the same as it was on GB. I have a lot of services constantly syncing and I begin using my Note hard core from 7 a.m. to around 2 p.m. The battery dies by 3 p.m. and I either plug it in or use my external battery pack which super charges it faster than anything I've tried out there.

Overall, I like my Android device (I was a long time Iphone user up to 4s) but it can be really really unstable. I can trouble shoot it to death and there are people out there who have a stable rom etc. but they may not have the same apps that I'm using. My iPhone was really my "best friend" because it never crashed and I could push the limits of the various services I was using without fearing that it would crash or lock up. With my note, I can do pretty much everything I could on my Iphone and that extra bit that I always wanted to do i.e. write notes, have home screen widgets so I don't have to click on apps all the time to figure out statuses. But what I was craving with ICS, is complete stablity. I can't even connect it to USB after the ICS update...so more headaches. Software aside, my screen cracked from a very short fall from my jeans and it'll cost $350 to fix it!
 
I find it smoother. Less lag for sure. However I thought I was going to get the Premium Suite with this updated, but not in my case. My SMemo is the same :-|

The rest: everything looks almost the same.
 
I have an N700 in the US but I haven't received my update yet :( How are you getting the official update?
 
I've just discovered that with ICS, my Note while on stand by almost does not use any power at all.

I've just seen the battery consumption graphic during the night and it's a perfect flat line.
 
lcsolano said:
I've just discovered that with ICS, my Note while on stand by almost does not use any power at all.

I've just seen the battery consumption graphic during the night and it's a perfect flat line.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear this. It was nice on my 3vo for it to work this way but the Note doesn't with Gingerbread. I look forward to the update.
 
Isn't the AT&T version of the Note the i717? In which case this thread should be on the i717 forum. The N7000 has a different CPU and case design, so ICS will not work exactly the same.

Ian
 
ifb-online said:
Isn't the AT&T version of the Note the i717? In which case this thread should be on the i717 forum. The N7000 has a different CPU and case design, so ICS will not work exactly the same.

Ian
Click to expand...

That's a good point. But ICS isn't available for anyone on the i717 note yet, so I can't ask there.
 
just got my ics update in india today...visually there is not much changes i would have liked as the touchwiz looks almost the same as in GB...it seems a little bit faster though.
face unlock while a nice trick is not ideal for everyday use as low light conditions and sometimes load time can put u off.
the new gmail app is excellent far ahead of the old one and the whole forumla recognition thing is pretty sweet and the new browser is pretty slick and i feel makes other browsers pretty redundant.
on the little time i spent with it i did notice a slightly higher battery drain but need to test it properly before i conform it.
on the whole i am satisfied with it:)
 
lcsolano said:
I find it smoother. Less lag for sure. However I thought I was going to get the Premium Suite with this updated, but not in my case. My SMemo is the same :-|

The rest: everything looks almost the same.
Click to expand...

The premium suite is not in s memo, you get s note instead. I just updated yesterday the ics version in Indonesia via ota and it has the premium suite.
 
i updated my NOTE to ICS and it killed it, had to send it back to where i got the phone from to be replaced... totally destroyed my phone
 
So far so good, smoother, faster, more responsive a few more apps to play with S-note, and more settings. Only negative so far is battery life, but I have a feeling that this will improve with a few cycles, and of course being new you tend to play with it more...
 
Ive updated to ICS version N7000DXLP5 last week. There was no update over the air but when I connected to KIES, the official ROM was there. After few times hick up (could be slow server connection), I managed to update.
First two days, the battery drain so fast! and it feel hot all time like the processor is download or upload something, I dont know why or how!!. Luckily, after hard reset and wipe all free and paid apps and data, the Note got back to normal. I heard some brick their Note during hard reset.. :o

Browsing got faster than ever.. S-Note is awesome!. Better control of mobile data usage and limit. More options on contact info... Other functions like camera, video, music player are just like GB..
The Touchwiz is so lame.. same as GB, I expected a better one.. so I got Nova Launcher which is really cool.. no more home button.
I downloaded more than 50 free apps from market after ICS upgrade (since i had deleted them on hard reset), so far no bugs..
Just one disappointment, face unlock feature is useless.. takes time to unlock, most of the time, it did not recognize my face..:rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom