How to Install Android 4.0.3 ICS on Samsung Galaxy S2

Samsung Galaxy S2 is a popular phone and you must be proud of it. Here is the unofficial Ice Cream Sandwich update. The Smartphone supports dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and 1GB RAM and which is worth to get upgradation and its Android 4.0.3 ICS with XXKPA firmware. The previous upgradate XXKP8 firmware upgrade has been taken into account with featured bug fixes and issues. If you have already rooted your Galaxy S2 from before with XXKP8 then after applying this new XXKPA update your rooting access will be revoked. So, you have to again re-apply the rooting procedure in your Galaxy S2. This update will faster the UI and smoothen the touch response. In addition, the battery life will get improved more than the previous build.

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Samsung Galaxy Note Headed to Canada in Mid-February

With the Galaxy Note set to make a splash in United States with a launch on AT&T, folks north of the border have reason to be excited as well. Samsung’s website is teasing a mid-February launch for the behemoth device and its 5.3-inch display. A specific carrier is not mentioned but the device may land on more than one in due time. News of a Canadian release comes fresh on the heels of rumors that Sprint and Verizon may also be looking into releasing the device in the US.

[Samsung via MobileSyrup]

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Pink Galaxy S II Now Available for Pre-Order in the UK

UK phone seller Phones4U has a new version of the Samsung Galaxy S II up for pre-order just in time for Valentine’s Day. Why is a new version of the Galaxy S II relevant to Valentine’s Day, you ask? Because this particular variant is all done up in pink. We saw the unique look first announced for Korea back in November but this is the first time we are seeing it available for other locations. It features the same spec sheet as the original Galaxy S II including a 4.2-inch Super AMOLED Plus display and 1.2GHz dual-core CPU. The re-colored handset arrives on February 13th, just in time to pair it with a box of chocolates and hope it makes some lucky lady very happy. We’re guessing she’d prefer a diamond ring.

[via SoMobile]

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The Coolest Thing Sen At CES 2012: Samsung’s Transparent Smart Window [Video]

Alright, so CES 2012 has come and gone but there was one thing I never got a chance to show you guys. Besides the boat load of Android rockin’ handsets and tablets I did manage to get my grubby little hands on one more “device” and that came in the form of Samsung’s Smart Window.

Easily the coolest tech I got to play with at CES this year, Samsung’s Smart Window could be considered the future. Well, that — or completely useless, depending on how you look at it. And even though it wasn’t directly Android related, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see how a simple swap of the OS could bring Android out of the world of boring old opaque screens and into the wonderful new frontier of transparent displays.

Check out my hands-on video below. Oh, and don’t mind the “no touch” sign below the display. Apparently it was more of a loose suggestion…

So, what did you guys think? Do transparent displays fall into the same gimmicky category as 3D displays? Or could a transparent Android tablet/smartphone prove itself truly useful in the distant future? You know — while skating around on your hoverboard.

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How to Update Samsung Galaxy ACE S5830 with ICS Styled Custom ROM

Samsung Galaxy ACE S5830 RUNS ON Android Gingerbread and many users want their ACE to run on Ice cream sandwich but there is no official news to convert the Android Gingerbread to Ice cream sandwich. The disappointment is not acceptable so we tried to guide you to convert your Galaxy ACE to taste the Android 4.0 Ice cream sandwich styled custom ROM. The news for updation didn’t hit because the hardware configuration is less than 1GHz which will not support the updation. The Myth ROM is mainly based on the Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread build BUKS1 which is ditto of Android 4.0.1 ICS.

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Unofficial CM9 / ICS ROM For Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi [Download & Install]

Ice Cream Sandwich hits the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi model. This comes in from XDA-Developers forum member DaAwesome1 and ericj83′afor releasing what is a KANG for CM9. Please bear in mind that this is notthe official CM9 ROM. The ROM is based on Android 4.0 and said to have a broken Camera as the only non functional feature right now. However, there might be glitches and bugs in the ROM that you can encounter if you give this ROM a go on your device.

Installation of the ROM is a very simple matter if you have previously been flashing custom ROMs to the Tab. However, here are the instructions for those who want to play around with this ROM.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. Androidedz will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements:

• A rooted Galaxy Tab 10.1.
• ClockworkMod recovery installed. Refer to this page at XDA-Developers to install ClockworkMod recovery on your Galaxy Tab 10.1.
• CM9 KANG v1.0.

Instructions:

1. To begin, download the ROM (zip) from the link above and copy it to the root of your SD card.
2. Reboot the device into recovery mode and make a Nandroid backup.
3. That done, select factory reset/wipe, wipe cache and then wipe dalvick cache.
4. Navigate to install zip from sdcard > choose zip from sdcard and select the ROM copied to your SD card.
5. Once the installation completes, simply reboot your device.

That’s it, your device should now boot into the new ICS based based ROM! For updates and queries, visit the forum thread at XDA-Developers.

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Official CM9 ROM For Galaxy S II [Download]

The Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 gets CyanogenMod 9 based on Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich. ICS for the Galaxy S II seems quiet far away, and by that we mean, a stable ROM, be it custom or official. After a lot of ICS based ROMs surfaced for the SGS II, all which are buggy and incomplete (by no means do we undermine the efforts put into the releases by developers) it is good to see something coming in straight from CyanogenMod itself. The recent CM9 release, like the many custom ROMs before it, is a highly experimental build, that is in no way recommended to be used as a daily driver. According to the forum thread, we’re looking at a functional build of CM9 in either January or February.

“Credits to AdamG-, atinm, codeworkx, coolya, guiper, nebkat, Unhelpful, xplodwild, yjwong, teamhacksung, the cyanogenmod-team.”

Needless to say, novice users with no experience of flashing custom ROMs, should stay away from this ROM. Here are some of the known bugs so far:

• RIL crashes on providers with NITZ, makes phone unusable (need new leak).
• Button backlights (Samsung has to fix it, they’ve messed it up).
• Low haptic feedback (need kernel sources to fix it).
• Sensors aren’t working very good (need kernel sources).
• Video recording (need new leak).
• Youtube video playback (black).
• Some missing video codecs.
• And a lot more.

The ROM also comes with the Face Unlock feature, however that has to be flashed independently.

Now there are two ways you can go around flashing this ROM on your device, via ClockworkMod recovery or via ODIN. However, if you decide to flash the ROM via ClockworkMod recovery, you will need to be running ICS bootloaders firstly. That of course is tricky, so flashing via ODIN is the better and safer option. But the ODIN package has not been updated as yet, whereas the CWM package is updated.

You can head over to the forum thread at XDA-Developers for instructions on how to flash the ROM on your device, because if you know what you’re dealing with here, you don’t need our step by step instructions. As for the novice users, this is not for you.

Download CM9 (ODIN)

Download CM9 (CWM)

Google Apps

Face Unlock

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Samsung starts rolling out Android 4.0 ICS ROM for Galaxy S II

If you’re a Samsung Galaxy S II owner, you might want to check fire up your Samsung Kies software to check whether the Ice Cream Sandwich update has already been rolled out in your region. There are two ROMs currently available from Samsung Kies in selected markets and these are I9100XXKP4 which is based on Android 4.0.1 with a build date of December 20, 2011 and I9100XXKP8 which is based on Android 4.0.3 with build date of December 30, 2011.

YouMobile who broke the news said that the KP8 ROM with Android ICS 4.0.3 will be rolled out in most regions directly. They also noticed the slight change in the User Interface of Samsung Galaxy S II while the ROM is running. There are also some new icons and new on/off toggle to the mix.

Samsung announced previously that ICS will be available for Samsung Galaxy S II either in the 1st quarter or 2nd quarter of this year.

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How to Install Face Unlock on Google Nexus S

Samsung Galaxy Nexus S is one of the popular Smartphone and now you can convert it to Ice Cream Sandwich manually with OTA package by following the steps in ‘How to update Nexus S to Android 4.0 ICS’. Originally the source code for ICS was released officially into the AOSP in late 2011. The upgrade was a smashing hit. When for the first time ISC was launched in October 19^th in Hongkong with 4.65 inch Samsung Galaxy Nexus which got popular by name- ‘Nexus Prime’, reveled many new features and one of them was face unlock. You might have thought of getting that feature in your phone and now get ready to make your unaccomplished dream into real. The Google Nexus S is a VGA camera but in Nexus it supports 1.3MP front camera which is also capable of shooting 720p video.

Face unlock feature of ice cream sandwich has hyped in past but few said it was just a way to lure customers to buy the Galaxy Nexus. Anyways the main thing is that you want to get the catchy feature in your Nexus S and let’s proceed to our steps below.

Prerequisites:

• A rooted Nexus S with a GSM variant that has bootloader unlocked and with custom recovery installed on the device.
• Check that your Nexus S must be running on ICS. All you need is to tap on Settings->About Phone->Firmware Version.

How to Install Face Unlock on Google Nexus S:

Techcular will not be responsible for any mishap. So follow the steps carefully.

Step 1: Download the Face Unlock package and save in your PC.

Step 2: Using a USB cable connect your phone to your PC.

Step 3: Now copy the ZIP file in your phone’s SD card but remember not to keep deep inside the subfolders.

Step 4: Now reboot your device into recovery mode by pressing and holding down the Volume Upkey and then pressing the Power Button.

Step 5: In the recovery mode, select the option ‘install zip from sdcard’.

Step 6: Now select ‘choose zip from sd card’.

Step 7: After that select the downloaded file which you have saved in your SD card.

Step 8: Give few minutes to your device to finish the installation into it.

Step 9: Now cleanly reboot your phone after the installation process is finished.

Walla! Your Samsung Google Nexus S have successfully installed Face Unlock feature. Now you can show off to your friends your new ICS feature in your rooted Nexus S.

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How To Root Samsung Galaxy Precedent In One Click

Galaxy Precedent, intended as a budget device is a CDMA based mobile phone intended for the budget market. It is not uncommon for budget phones to have their rooting guides buried underneath a pile of guides concerning the much hotter phones. If you still have a Galaxy Precednt lying around, or are still using one and have never rooted it, you may like to know that rooting the device is simply a one click automated process. Thanks toShabbypenguin at Android Forums for bringing this to us.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. Androidedz will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements:

• Samsung USB drivers installed. Download USB drivers for 32bit Windows | 64bit.
• One Click Root.

Instructions:

1. To begin, download the root package from the link above and extract the contents.
2. Make sure USB Debugging in Settings > Applications > Development.
3. Connect the device to the computer and simply run the .bat file to begin the rooting process.
4. On Linux or Mac, run the .sh file from the terminal after connecting the device to the computer.

[VIA ANDROID FORUMS]

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How to Overclock Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE To 1.9Ghz

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE gets a 1.9Ghz overclock! This comes in straight after the device was rooted by XDA-Developers forum memberDa_G who is also responsible for this OC kernel as well. 1.9Ghz is huge, but before you get excited, you need to be aware that this is meant for the 8.9 LTE SGH-i957 model and not the 73XX Tegra 2 powered 8.9 models.

Enabling 1.9Ghz on your Tab is as easy it was rooting the device. What you have is a custom kernel that you can flash after you have rooted your device using Da_G’s rooted kernel. 1.9Ghz is not much stable when running benchmarks, but if you’re familiar with the likes of SetCPU or CPUMaster, you can lower the clocks a bit and find the right sweet spot for your tablet.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. Androidedz will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements:

• A rooted Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE. See our guide on rooting the Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE.
• Samsung USB drivers.
• ODIN.
• 1944Mhz OC kernel.

Instructions:

1. To begin, download the kernel and ODIN from the link above.
2. Extract the ODIN package and run ODIN.
3. Hit the PDA button and browse to the downloaded kernel to select it.
4. Make sure, Re-partition is unchecked in ODIN.
5. Now put the tablet in Download mode by holding the Volume Up and Volume Down key along with the Power button, letting go of the power button as soon the device turns on. Hit the Volume Up key once the warning shows.
6. Connect the device to the PC and once it shows connected in ODIN, hit the Start button to begin flashing the kernel.
7. Once the kernel is flashed, the device will reboot itself.

Download SetCPU or CPUMaster from the Android market to adjust the clock frequency of the CPU to your liking. For updates and queries, head over to the forum thread at XDA-Developers.

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