Thought it might be worth sharing this, because I could not find something similar when I searched.
I have SGS2 running 2.3.6 GB, and wanted to upgrade to IceCreamSandwich, but here is what I wanted to check, and the results.
Firstly it's not immediately obvious that it's ICS firmware. I don't use Kies very much, in fact the only reason I do since late last year is to hang out for this this update instead of having to root the phone. The ICS just popped up as PDA:LP8 and I verified else on this forum it was 4.0.3
Backup your phone if you don't already. I know Kies is not the best backup option but better than nothing.
In my case I was unsure if I would loose any data - so I backed up every on both the internal (~11.5GB) and my external 32GB SD micro card.
I backed up by connecting through the phone USB utilities meaning 2 disk drives appeared in my case I:, J:. Did not connect via MTP application ie. just plugging the phone it & it appears in Windows as 'i1900 phone, card'. The reason for this as disk drives I ran the windows disk checking tool on both drives to make sure there was no corruption, just like you would in windows with C: drive. Minor corrupt files can prevent back up running.
With Everything saved, I hit the firmware update & waiting while it did it's thing for about 1 hour incl a couple of reboots on the phone.
After the upgrade - have to restart the phone for Kies to recognise it again and load the usb drivers.
All went well - no data was lost, all the sd card data remained as is including the countless application folders that are created. Everything worked as expected - most apps have already been updated to work in 4.x There were only one or 2 that went off to Play to find updates.
Lessons learnt?
The only thing I would have done differently is screen captured (Home+Power key) all my home screens + apps draw (layout). After the upgrade you get the carriers default crapware, all your widgets need setting up again, and all folders on the home screens AND apps draw are gone - meaning the apps are spread throughout. ie. folders are gone but not the apps.
To set up all my widgets again, I am going off memory instead it would be nice to have a back up stored set of screen images that I look at - minor issue perhaps it's time to clean up anyway.
I will leave the reviews of ICS to later, but there is a 40 slide pdf summarised the change below. I have found 3G network speeds are a little better, so is battery life besides the UI improvements.
http://dash.coolsmartphone.com/wp-c...100-Ice-Cream-Sandwich-Guide-Ver-2.0.pptx.pdf
cheers
(bullets don't seem to stick?)
I have SGS2 running 2.3.6 GB, and wanted to upgrade to IceCreamSandwich, but here is what I wanted to check, and the results.
Firstly it's not immediately obvious that it's ICS firmware. I don't use Kies very much, in fact the only reason I do since late last year is to hang out for this this update instead of having to root the phone. The ICS just popped up as PDA:LP8 and I verified else on this forum it was 4.0.3
Backup your phone if you don't already. I know Kies is not the best backup option but better than nothing.
In my case I was unsure if I would loose any data - so I backed up every on both the internal (~11.5GB) and my external 32GB SD micro card.
I backed up by connecting through the phone USB utilities meaning 2 disk drives appeared in my case I:, J:. Did not connect via MTP application ie. just plugging the phone it & it appears in Windows as 'i1900 phone, card'. The reason for this as disk drives I ran the windows disk checking tool on both drives to make sure there was no corruption, just like you would in windows with C: drive. Minor corrupt files can prevent back up running.
With Everything saved, I hit the firmware update & waiting while it did it's thing for about 1 hour incl a couple of reboots on the phone.
After the upgrade - have to restart the phone for Kies to recognise it again and load the usb drivers.
All went well - no data was lost, all the sd card data remained as is including the countless application folders that are created. Everything worked as expected - most apps have already been updated to work in 4.x There were only one or 2 that went off to Play to find updates.
Lessons learnt?
The only thing I would have done differently is screen captured (Home+Power key) all my home screens + apps draw (layout). After the upgrade you get the carriers default crapware, all your widgets need setting up again, and all folders on the home screens AND apps draw are gone - meaning the apps are spread throughout. ie. folders are gone but not the apps.
To set up all my widgets again, I am going off memory instead it would be nice to have a back up stored set of screen images that I look at - minor issue perhaps it's time to clean up anyway.
I will leave the reviews of ICS to later, but there is a 40 slide pdf summarised the change below. I have found 3G network speeds are a little better, so is battery life besides the UI improvements.
http://dash.coolsmartphone.com/wp-c...100-Ice-Cream-Sandwich-Guide-Ver-2.0.pptx.pdf
cheers
(bullets don't seem to stick?)
