[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-I777] VanillaCracker:
Official Samsung ICS Analysis

Alright so here begins the unofficial observation of Official Stock ICS for SG2 I777:

I reverted back to stock last night and ran the 2.3.4 GB for a little bit. Not gonna lie it was smoother than I remember. I'd just been using UnNamed again a few days before and it reminded me a decent amount of that. Not quiteee as smooth, but very similar. Only lag I noticed was transitioning from messaging, which is slow to react in most roms I've used.

Before I mention anything, I'll give a glimpse of what AT&T wants to tell you about the update:

Mmm well for some reason image isn't working. Go here, then scroll down to where it says "Android 4.0 update available" http://www.wireless.att.com/support/deviceTutorials.do?tutorialId=924060

So they don't specifically say that you're going to have have a snappier interface or better battery life, or anything like that. Keep that in mind. (Although I do recognize ICS is more efficient than GB in general)

Anyway, downloaded the whole kies thing (off samsung the dl was 45 minutes, so I was like **** that. Took 4 minutes off a third party), and the ugrade took a little while. Bout 9 minutes or so. After the update was complete, I got stuck in boot loop right off the bat, and went into the stock recovery system to wipe data and cache. Booted up fine after that.

First Impressions: The whole software just seemed to lag slightly, in general. Transitioning screens, menu transitions, backing from messaging, etc. Noticeable lag there. It does not hinder your experience at all, but if you don't like it, you don't like it. I also noticed a quite clear lull in the software after pressing the home button. You press the home button, and .5 seconds later you feel the vibration and it goes to home screen. maybe it's .25 seconds, but either way it's obviously noticeable as it is not an instant response, like stock GB is. Keep in mind I let the phone sit for about 12 minutes before I started messing around with it, and also rebooted it right after the 12 minutes to make sure everything was fine and settled in. Other things I noticed, my phone seemed to run hotter than usual. I was running sms backup to restore my messages, and my fine was Very hot. Not extremely, but hotter than I've seen it in a while. Last time it was that hot was after I'd been playing a 3D game for at least 20 minutes. And all I was doing was restoring messages..and I do that all the time. It never gets hot like that. Stock GB did not get this hot (aside from games). Lastly, I noticed that while the phone is locked, and screen off, pressing the power button to wake it again, the screen took about 1 second to actually turn on (80% of the time). I noticed this a few times in GB roms like UnNamed and UnOriginal, but after a day or so that problem almost completely went away. It now only does that every once in a while (few times today). <-- this is probably not indicative to everyone, may just be my experience.

Alright, time to get into the specifics.

Keyboard: The Official ICS keyboard is as you would expect from the market. However it runs much different than it does if you were using it from your GB rom. Overall experience is...positive. Kinda. The features the keyboard add are very worthwhile. But the slight lag it brings is unwelcomed. Just like the transitions on the phone with this update in general, the keyboard lags slightly while being used by quick fingers. the GB android keyboard was quick and snappy, very responsive; if you are a very quick typer, you might be frustrated with the new keyboard, or at least how it acts with the software specific update. Overall features are fantastic as already mentioned, word correction is much more elaborate (instead of scrolling, you may hold down your finger to get the list of all suggested words) and also word correction is just better in general (now incorporates two word correciton - like if your spacebar didn't register [which it may be more likely to do as it lags more now] , for instance if you type "bar stool" but it registers as "barstool" it will give the option for "bar stool" instead of like bangladesh or w.e it would probably have done on the GB keyboard). Voice typing works a lot better too now. I suggest speaking slowly, the thing can't handle normal speach speed for ****. For instance, I just tested out, by speaking at a moderately fast pace saying "Oh yeah, is it going to be better now?" and it typed "Oh yes around the corner". Then spoke at a 'forced' moderate pace, saying the same thing, and it typed "Hell yeah is it going to be better now", so pretty good. I tested both google and vlingo (two defaults provided - actual default is google), and they provided very similar results. I think vlingo might be slightly more accurate sometimes. Other improvements, spacebar is longer (they shortened the return, and number key - button left, to do so), and keys have a littleeee more space between em. Overall I think the feel is better, but it is noticiable sluggish when you type quickly for 2 sentences and beyond. If you're a moderately paced texter or slower, should be good to go. My testings were with vibrate off, fyi. Vibrate can never keep up with my speed and always slows the keyboard down A LOT, from what I've noticed. GB keyboard wasn't as bad with that, but it still couldn't keep up 100%.

Lockscreen: The new and improved locks screen is pretty cool, albeit not having too many improvements, it's very welcomed. First and foremost, they gave you a better experience by not forcing you to do an almost full screen swipe to unlock your phone, like with the original lockscreen. You now have a circle forming around your finger, that only requires about an inch to swipe (from the center [where your finger is] to the edge of the circle, from which it will then unlock your phone. This can be brought up anywhere on the lockscreen. So you could put your thumb on the bottom left part of the screen, and swipe an inch to the right, and you can unlock your phone. It's a very small swipe, and mucho appreciated, IMO. Also, with a message present, there is a red circle with a message symbol in the center that you can swipe from to open directly to the message. Other added features, they allow you to put weather on your lockscreen now, works pretty well, I don't keep data on all the time so I can't say how accurate it is and what not, but it fits right under your time and looks fine. It's got the town, the temp underneath, and then a little icon of the weather (mines currently a little moon, from last night, before I turned off auto refresh).

Overall Feel: The overall feel of the rom is...kind of a put down. It is not snappy, by any means, IMO. It doesn't give you any real crisp or reassuring feel at all; when going through and clicking on things and performing actions. My overall feeling is, it is slightly annoying to use. I can no doubt see why people complain and want to switch back to GB. I consider GB and ICS more as two separate entities, and not ICS as an upgrade. ICS has more features, but a worse feel and response. ICS interface is slightly better as well.

Launchers: I tested out the following launchers: Go Launcher, ADW, Nova, Holo, MiHome, and Apex. I will admit, while going through these different launchers I noticed again that this running this update, my phone gets a lot hotter than usual. I will say, that I have a metal backing on the case I use for my phone, so it is easily noticeable when my phone gets hot, and it didn't happen with other roms or with stock, like it does with the ICS update.

Go launcher: The standard go launcher approach, but it feels significantly hindered on this update. The transitions seem sluggish and half assed. I used the default transition and it didn't feel snappy or reassuring.

ADW: This is in my opinion, the best launcher to use for the official ICS. It was by far the fastest in tersm of swiping across home screens, and also had very quick transitions into contacts, and messaging. transition into the app panel was pretty slow, but that's because the default transition is basically the icons floating into place, not because it runs slowly.

Apex launcher: ran pretty flawlessly, like it normally does other ICS roms, albeit I noticed slight lag.

Holo launcher: very very good launcher to run on this update. It runs very quickly, almost on par with ADW, but is an ICS themed launcher alternative. It also opens up things like contacts, phone, and messaging very quickly.

Nova launcher: also runs very quickly, similar to holo but maybe slightly slower in swiping home screens. Nova was also oddly slow at opening contacts/phone as well as messaging, compared to the rest. I wouldn't suggest this launcher for this update, compared to the performance of the rest.

MiHome (MIUI's launcher): This ran soo smoothly and so quickly while swiping across home screens. Made me smile (good old MIUI, lol). I must say it appears to run quicker on this update than even the AdyScorp GB MIUI does. And that's basically the fastest rom I've ever tried. Albeit opening contacts and phone seemed pretty slow, more sluggish than Nova. And opening messaging was average speed. Also, the swiping seems to be slightly easier to d o on MiHome compared to the rest. This I was surprised to notice. BTW I didn't do a review of the TwLauncher, because I assume you want an alternative if you even care about the launcher review.

Modem (UCLE5): The default modem that the update comes with I find to my liking. Granted I'm probably going to find myself going back to KK6 at some point, I still like this new one. I'm not going to speak too much on the modem because I know it's very much regionally based. The overall feel of the modem seems to be more like the LD3/4 and LC5, but with an added layer of complexity. It is not in the same field as the KK6 and KH7. The new modem seems to get me more bars where I normally would have less with KK6, but it doesn't serve me as high of bars in moderate to high reception areas as KK6 does. I feel like it's a much more consistent modem but since I know I could be getting better reception with another, I won't keep it. For me, being in a bad area is a problem (if I actually want to upload a picture onto FB or something), so whether I have 1 bar or 2 bars isn't going to make the difference. I'm just going to move to an area with better reception. So I'll probably stick to KK6. I'll edit this post if I change my mind after a couple weeks of use. Data speeds with the new LE5 seem pretty good! They almost seem to be on par with KK6. In high reception areas might be about 15-30% slower, but in low-moderate reception areas I do notice a much more consistent data speed. Like I will get slightly above average speeds with LE5 in low-moderate areas, whereas with KK6 I notice it drops to relatively slow speeds unless you have decent coverage. Modem talk is all opinion though, so take that with a grain of salt.

Other Small Things:

If you can't tell from the screenshots, they changed the H+ symbol to a 4G (lmao). Figured that was worth noting. I believe they did the same with AT&T's Iphone. Says 4G in the top left corner, while verizon's says 3G. Some of those verizon customers must be PISSED lolll.

Just something I've been noticing a lot, (as I just turned off wifi, then tapped messaging real quick, and the phone didn't register it) is that transitions take longer to perform (ICS thing, I'm guessing) and also unlike GB it doesn't register a touch even if you press it, while on GB roms, it may take a little bit to process it, but it Will register your press, at some point. Which is another reason why it feels annoying to use overall (I've noticed that with many other ICS roms too).

Battery life is decent. I'd consider it 15% better than GB, if you use it casually and if you were using the same exact way that you did before you upgraded. I got about 3 hours screen on time, with moderate-heavy texting/ a 30 minute phone call, and roughly 15 minutes on facebook total. Pretty decent, nothing great. Better than I'd gotten sometimes on MIUI, for sure.

Touch response seems to be pretty good on this update though! Compared to a lot of other ICS roms I think it is one of the best. I didn't feel like I was on an ICS rom. Felt very similar to GB. I'd say it is far better than AOKP and most other AOSP ICS roms in that department.

After running this rom for a few days now, I have not had any Force Closes whatsoever, so people who did that clearly didn't wipe data and such. As mentioned at the top of my comment, I had to wipe to even get it to boot up correctly, but I haven't had any instability issues with this update whatsoever.

There were a bunch more little things I was going to add but I didn't write any of it down so I'll add em in when I think of them again. Ending thoughts, you WILL notice how it is less responsive and slightly sluggish, but you will also appreciate the little tweaks that have been added into the update. So for me, it's not worth keeping, as those the lag annoys me greatly, and impairs my use slightly, but to others it may not be too hindering at all. To each their own. Hope you found this useful.

Also, you can share this or re-post it wherever, idc.