Some great news for owners of last year’s Nexus phone has popped up today, with Google announcing that the “Ice Cream Sandwich” Android 4.0 update for the Nexus S is starting to arrive for owners of GSM versions of the phone from today. We use GSM networks here. That’s us.
Don’t get too excited, mind, as Google also warns that the process is going to take a while to reach all users. As ever.
Google’s also put up a list of changes in the way Android 4.0 works, for those who haven’t been hanging on every revelation concerning the development of ICS. We’d image Nexus S owners are extremely clued up, but you never know.
It’s smooth to use, the 1080p display is sharp, clear and bright, the device is extremely light and thin and therefore very pocketable and portable — much more so than other 5-inch phones we’ve used. And yet… we’re a bit unimpressed by the overall package…
A relatively high-spec smartphone, with a 4.5″ display running at 480 x 854 resolution and powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, plus the Ascend G510 arrives running Android 4.1.1 — albeit potentially hindered by Huawei only sticking 512MB of RAM inside it..
The Panasonic Eluga marks the company’s return to the European mobile phone scene years after several years of absence, and it’s come back to us with a moderately high-spec Android model that features a rather stylish, slim case.
Sony returns with an all-new mobile design for 2012, pairing a dual-core processor with a 720p display. It’s a lovely phone, but is it enough to end our Samsung and HTC obsession?
LG’s updated Prada phone comes with an absolutely crazy black & white theme, but is it just for fashionable suit wearers who want to make themselves look a bit more interesting?
Mark
/ December 16, 2011Got it now, works well so far. I didn’t wait for the OTA update, just went with the one leaked on Google+
mintvilla
/ December 16, 2011I was goin to get the nexus s, got the gs2 instead, never doubted my choice til now lol, waiting for cm9 for the galaxy………
Dave Chambers
/ December 16, 2011Flash player for ICS is also now available from the Market
Keith
/ December 17, 2011Getting it now OTA, in the UK!
seaempty
/ December 18, 2011My stepdad’s NExus S just got the OTA update – i9020 in the UK. Still waiting on my i9023.
Hands0n
/ December 18, 2011I received the OTA on my Nexus S last night. It had been retired in favour of the Galaxy Nexus several weeks ago and the battery had gone flat. I dug it out, popped the battery in, stuck it on charge and powered it up. Within a few minutes it was notifying about the OTA update being available. Five minutes later the update was downloaded and verified, but because of the low battery it wouldn’t allow the update. This morning I applied the update and it all went flawlessly.
ICS on the Nexus S is noticeably quicker/slicker, and battery consumption seems a lot lower too. I cannot perceive a difference in general UI performance between the two Nexus devices. The camera is much quicker, but slower than the Galaxy Nexus – that’ll be hardware constraints no doubt.
Over all this is a superb update and breathes a whole lot of life into the Nexus S, placing it head and shoulders over all Gingerbread (and below) Android smartphones.
Despairing
/ December 20, 2011Well, my phone started updating last night. It downloaded ok, then started the countdown from 10 for when it was going to restart and install…and at 6 it came up with the message “You phone is running the latest version”.
Nothing else happened, even after I manually rebooted. It’s still on 2.3.6. Anyone know if I can kick-start the process again?