[Sony Xperia S, Acro S, Ion] jtr165:
My first post on here, but i've been watching these forums for a long time. Sorry for the length, but i've spent around 36 hours with .105 on an LT28AT...and this is what i've noticed:

I flashed .105 from Spectre's ftf listing in the other thread, using flashtool. It took a lot of trial and error, mostly with drivers (getting flashtool to recognize the lt28at), but it eventually worked. The driver wizard for the version of flashtool i downloaded did not list the Ion. It only showed a few 2012 phones and a 'general flash' driver. I installed those, then went through the process, which still didn't work right away...eventually my PC listed "S1 device driver installed' when the phone was plugged in while holding the down volume button (i had done that 4 times at least before, each time windows claiming to be installing a driver)...then the flash went off without an issue.

Performance seems to be similar. Sony's ICS skin puts a lot more animation over most actions when compared to the GB variant. Its still nearly as responsive, but with a lot more 'stuff' happening on screen. I've tested every regular action i could think of. Voice/Video chat through google talk and skype work as before with .105. Some had questions about the voice dialer through BT as well as through the speaker phone; works better imo, with faster response and seemingly more precision. The 4 soft keys at the bottom of the phone seem much better, although i never really had a problem before. I'd occasionally miss a button when not looking at the phone or something...but now it seems to have a bigger tap area as well as more intense haptic feedback layered on it, so you're rarely questioning if you hit it or not.

No major bugs that i've seen. One, though, is the new power saver widget...which is mostly the same app as before with a few extra issues...but the widget has a battery life read out in a percentage that often stalls for whatever reason. It usually stays accurate down to about 40% then just stops updating. Oh well though, i've been using a different battery monitor for months that does basically the same thing, but with more info. Also, to those about the wifi issues, all that happened to me was simply needing to re-enter the security info for my regular networks. the flash didn't erase my known networks, but I would not get an IP address when connecting to them. Simply 'forgetting' all of them and re-entering the keys worked fine.

On the battery note, i totally see what the other user was talking about with overall phone/battery temp. ICS seems to run nice and cold on the Ion. Just streaming pandora with the phone on my desk hooked up with head phones, and the screen off...would spike the temp up over 110*F easily with GB. i've yet to see it rise much over 80 when i'm indoors and out of the sun...and using the same stuff as before. Battery life overall seems great so far, but i was getting along ok with GB. Never had to charge more than once a day, but i live in an area without LTE, and almost never use the moblie data as its trash around here. With regular use, screen relatively dim, and wifi often connected...10 hours happens regularly for me. ICS definitely hasn't made that worse.

lastly, the new album app is light years ahead of the 'gallery' GB came with. You can easily sort through all of your pictures and videos, and quickly manipulate thumbnail size. Sony did a great job of getting GB to run a lot of ICS-like features, but the full version does a better job of overlaying those features throughout the entire OS. Its not some huge step forward, i thought GB on the Ion was completely acceptable, but the ICS update is better enough to justify the hassle of updating.

oh, and i have not had any of the 'notification loop' some are getting. I'm on the 105 build, haven't had anything about 107. Not sure why, just pointing that out though...