ICS Update on Telus Galaxy Tab 10.1

[Omnispheric]

Hi All;

Just a tip for Tab 10.1 users on Telus (Canada).

I upgraded my 10.1 to ICS (via the Tab's "Software Update") last month.
I was quite impressed with ICS, and it seemed like a great upgrade...faster and slick...all in all, really nice.

However, it caused my battery life to go totally down the crapper. I researched online and read that it can take a bunch of charge cycles to recalibrate power management. But, after more than a week of use, it was still gobbling up the battery like crazy. It was awful.
I finally resigned to revert to Honeycomb - so, I did the "Factory Data Reset".

To my complete surprise, it didn't restore Honeycomb, and instead did a fresh install of ICS!!

I started using it, and noticed many interesting things about this new install - it was like a different version of ICS. The lock and home screens were different, the settings layout was different etc etc.

Well, long story short, it would seem that doing the upgrade over top of Honeycomb is a flawed process - it leaves way too much of Honeycomb resident and active within ICS. Doing the factory reset gave me a clean install of ICS 4.04 on my 10.1, and this had many new features and an even more different look than the in-place upgrade.

More importantly, my power management issues are gone, and my battery life is back to nromal (and perhaps even better than on Honeycomb).

So, for Telus customers who upgrade their 10.1 to ICS, I would highly recommend doing a factory data reset (after the in-place upgrade) to get a clean install of ICS. It fixed my battery life issue, and it gives you proper lean and mean version of ICS, rather than a Frankenstein of the two Androids.

Cheers!

 

[DC1022]

Factory resests do not restore you to the earliest version of android you had on your tablet, it simply wipes everything but the os and the kernel. Also it's a good practice to always do a factory reset to start fresh and clean after a software update. Glad your problems were fixed.

 

[Omnispheric]

I figured the version of Honeycomb that shipped with my Tab was burned onto a ROM or something, because the last time did a reset, it wiped out things like the update to Google Play from "Market".)

So, it was a surprise to me that the ICS update completely overwrote the original Honeycomb stored in the Tab.

Normally, when I upgrade or install a new OS, I'll wipe the drive and do clean install. (at least on a PC with Windows)
But in this case with a mobile device, I could only see upgrading as the carrier specified. I didn't find any other way to upgrade to ICS...unless rooting it and downloading it from somewhere would do it.)

Anyways, it's all good now.

I wrote the original post so that it'll hopefully get Googled...and then other Telus Tab users might find it when searching for why their Tab suddenly has the battery life of a radio shack alkaline after the in-place upgrade.

Cheers!

 

[Deleted User]

I figured the version of Honeycomb that shipped with my Tab was burned onto a ROM or something, because the last time did a reset, it wiped out things like the update to Google Play from "Market".)

It's not actually burned into a ROM, but NVFLASH memory onboard where the compressed firmware code gets stored. After you do a factory reset, it wipes the system and data caches from regular memory. When you reboot, it takes much longer as the system files are expanded, copied to the cache location and then optimized in the Dalvik cache, and that's where the system runs. And that's also why a reset clears away issues, as the old cache data is wiped and replaced with freshly optimized cache that works better with the OS Kernel.

This applies to all versions of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, including the WiFi models, 3G models from Rogers, Bell and Telus, and international versions used in the EU.

Speaking of European models, for fun I flashed the UK version on my Rogers Tab and now have a cleaner install of ICS, free of the Rogers crapware and settings. It's cleaner, works well and I'm very happy with the ICS update. I also unlocked my Tab and can use any compatible carrier's SIM card...sweet.