[Xperia Arc General] mr_torture:
Worth keeping the direction...

So we are "lucky" to have another ICS update, after the first let-down experience with ICS.

I upgraded my phone yesterday. Well actually not upgraded, but installed from scratch a fresh new ICS, because I never had good experience with upgrading over existing ROM.

So, what is the impression...

After the first booting, everything seemed the same as before. Laggy home screen scrolling, laggy app drawer, the same user interface. But then some positive things started to happen. After few minutes and after some things settled in memory, system started to feel much more sleek and responsive than before.

First thing to notice is that Phone/Contacts app is not laggy anymore, and it doesn't take few seconds to load as before. It's a shame that this terrible bug was ever present in the first place (in an OFFICIAL software), but given the circumstances, we must praise the fixing of this terrible bug.

Second thing to notice, is that Camera app feels sleeker than before, and that video recording is not laggy anymore. But I should add that with image stabiliser turned on, you may experience some weird "jumps" if you move across the scene. So unless you're recording a still scene, don't use it. Camera picture quality is nice when you look at photos zoomed out, but when you zoom to 100% you will notice the same compression artifacts as on GB. Using 3rd party camera apps may improve results (Camera Zoom FX or Camera 360), but don't expect too much.*

Talking about pictures, the third thing to notice is that gallery (Xperia gallery, not the other Gallery) feels faster than last time, and it is loading pictures, even when you have a lot of them, very fast.

Regarding the LED notification, I see people reporting it still doesn't work properly with WhatsApp, but since I'm not using that app, I can say it's working fine with missed calls and messages, and that's all I need.***

One more nice thing I noticed, is option "Reject with message" on incoming calls, which appears in the bottom of the screen. I'm not sure was it present in the last update, but I didn't notice it back then. I needed this option a thousands of times before, so thumbs up for this one.

Browsing seems as fast as on GB, Play Store as well, and all other apps are tolerable regarding speed.

Wireless seems stable till this moment also...**

Battery seems to drain a little bit faster than on GB, but it's tolerable. I fully charged it last night on 23:15 and I left wireless and Music player turned on till this morning (unintentionaly - I sleeped with earphones). Also, I was intensively browsing last night while listening music, and this morning as well. And now my battery shows 35% of charge (14:05).

*Update 1:

After some additional testing during the day, I can say that Camera app is definitely improved, regarding picture quality. Compression is not as bad as on GB, and tiny details are much clearer now, especially in low light scenes and macro focus. Also, photos size (not resolution-wise, but megabyte-wise) are almost doubled now (about 60-70% to be precise).

**Update 2:

After 2 days of testing, I can say that wireless is improved compared to GB, regarding network catching speed, and connection speed. Browser (Dolphin) is now loading and rendering pages much faster compared to GB. Also, I haven't lost connection even once in these two days, and it was happening occasionally on GB, in the middle of page loading.

***Update 3:

For some weird reason, there IS LED notification for some messages, and there is NO LED notification for others (even from the same sender).

So, to conclude. Compared to last ICS update, this one seems much more polished, complete, functional. Few bugfixes are there, and it doesn't feel as crippled, half-finished product, as it was last time.

If you saw my impression on last update, you could see that I was extremely disapointed, and that I switched to GB immediately. This time, even I still think that GB is much more functional, I think this update is worth keeping, for anyone who wants to have a fresh and up-to-date software. You will have a little bit choppier experience compared to GB, but tolerably functional and fresh software.

It is your choice...

Note: DO NOT update OfficeSuite app, as you will be offered to do so immediately after the first Play Store launch, along with other 7 apps. The other ones you can update as you wish, but for some reason, when you update OfficeSuite, the system starts to hang terribly. Maybe it's something individual, but in my case it was like that.

Cheers...