Impressions of Official ICS ( German build ) on the Galaxy Note N7000

The ICS upgrade for the Galaxy Note was released to German users yesterday and immediately the rom was available for download the same day at forum XDA. I upgraded mine yesterday ( I was last on Cyanogen 9 AOPK rom ) and these are the details :

Impressions of the rom :

1. It is still slight laggy with Touchwiz UI . This can be improved slightly by turning on the 2d Rendering from Developers Options  and change animations to .5x instead of 1x. Or change launcher to Nova or Apex – you will lose most Samsung Widgets except S memo and s bookmarks

2. Overall performance I find the similar Touchwiz based leaked Alba V3 is slight slicker and smoother. This rom developer has now released his latest v4 based on this German ICS . This ICS build however loses out in slickness and smoothness to earlier leak AOPK builds such as Cyanofree, Liquid Smooth and Cyanogen9

3. Slight glitches in Playstore initially – force close but was resolved by clearing data at Settings/Applications

4. Glitches in Camera app – freeze at first launch. Relaunching was Ok . However immediate switch to Video Record mode, it freezes. I have to close app and relaunch it again

5. Was impressed by its default modem XXLPT – must say is the best baseband radio I have used so far in the Note. Those interested just to improve their baseband rdio can download it from my box at : https://www.box.com/s/1bf0a3f278ab80cfd0fa . Flash the extracted modem.bin file using Mobile Odin

6. USB connection mode , you need to set it up separately as follows :

1. Tap Settings.
2. Click More… (under Wireless and network).
3. Then select USB utilities ~ Set USB cable connection mode.
4. Select Connect storage to PC then.
5. Connect USB cable from phone to PC.
6. Select Turn on USB storage.

7. Most other stuffs works generally well – WiFi, bluetooth, WiFi hotspot, GPS, browsing,email etc. Did not faced any issues with my commonly used apps

8. Tested restoring from its default recovery – a disaster I’d say.

I tried to restore back my Cyanogen9 rom using the default recovery – system restore fail halfway and phone cannot boot back – hung at the Samsung logo
Boot back to recovery and select reset – same problem, phone cannot boot back
Tried to reinstall Abyss Kernel 4.2 – installation hung halfway and freeze . Test this again – same
Use the default recovery and tried to restore back my German ICS rom – restore system fail halfway
Boot back to recovery and noted Clockworkmod recovery changed to 5.5.0.4 which was Cyanogen9 default recovery
Tried reinstall Abyss kernel 4.2 – failed
Tried restore backup of Cyanogen9 and German ICS – both failed and phone restart and hung
Last resort – tested install Abyss kernel 3.9 – install sucess. Boot to recovery at advanced and select restore back my old GB rom ( Cassie LC1) – successfully restore with full root
So, a TIP to all users – DON’T attempt to do any restore using the default recovery ; seems is still quite problematic

Need to do more further testing by reflashing to Abyss kernel 4.2 instead and start from there

Download link of rom :

N7000XXLPY_N7000OXALPY_DBT.zip ( 669 MB ) : http://www.hotfile.com/dl/155490069/c7932d4/N7000XXLPY_N7000OXALPY_DBT.zip.html

Extract in PC to get the tar file : N7000XXLPY_N7000OXALPY_N7000XXLPT_HOME.tar.md5 ( 999 MB)

Copy this tar file to phone Internal SD card or External SDCard

I use Mobile Odin in the phone  to flash the tar file. Launch Mobile Odin and selerct “Open file” . You will be prompted to select file from either Internal SDcard or External SDcard – choose accordingly.  Select the tar file. I have selected also to wipe data and  all caches as I wanted a fresh slate of the rom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I selected Flash Firmware and the phone flash the rom and rebooted within 4 minutes to the new ICS rom . The rooted state of my previous rom remains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I than relaunch Mobile Odin , select Kernel and flash CF Root kernel to regain ClockworkMod recovery :

CF Root : CF-Root-SGN_XX_OXA_LPY-v5.3-CWM5.zip ( 6.7 MB) : http://download.chainfire.eu/163/CF-Root/SGN/CF-Root-SGN_XX_OXA_LPY-v5.3-CWM5.zip

Extract it in PC to get the zImage file ( 8.4 MB) and copy it to Internal SDcard or External SDcard

Some screenshots of the homescreen of  the rom in its default state :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Screenshots of the apps that comes with the rom :

Screenshots of the Premiun S note app : I noted my previous tests of 3 memos ( below 3 ) were auto restored back

Tagged: ICS, ICS for Galaxy Note, Samsung Galaxy Note

Posted in: Android, Software : Mobile/PDA's