I bought the phone in January sim free, for full price from my local mobile phone store. It is running stock android 2.3.4 (build number: GINGERBREAD.XWKI4). Its been in the online news a lot that ICS would be available by the end of Q1 but still, i am unable to update. I get a message saying my firmware is the latest available.
I live in New Zealand and as far as i understand you (USA) have ICS but what about for me? I'm assuming my phone is the international version so i thought i would have the update by now.
So does anyone know the full story?
Thanks
ICS hasn't been released by any of the NZ telcos yet (I checked with Checkfus). You can pretty much run any ICS stock (or custom for that matter) rom you want. Lots of Odin (mainly stock roms) & CWM flashable (mainly custom) roms on here (search the development sections).
One thing to bear in mind if you do flash a stock ICS rom from another region tho, you may have problems getting updates via Kies in future. If that happens, you'd need to flash a stock rom for your region in order to get Kies updates again. Or you could do what the majority of people on here do, bypass Kies completely (horrible excuse for software) & flash all your roms manually.
As long as you've got an I9100 or I9100T you can flash any firmware for these phones.
Fellow Kiwi here mate, just flash any ics rom thru odin. I've had no issues whatsoever, the latest Lp7 rom with speedmod kernel is the best I've had. You wont regret it.
I'm with telecom, they wont update anything quickly at all.
Hope this helps your decision
Related
Hi, i'm relatively new to this whole firmware thing and found it hard to work out what the newest and best stock firmware available is through odin and what the newest android firmware available is? I'm not interested in rooting my phone. Also i don't really want to wipe the memory off my phone while flashing.
If someone could post links to these, and what order i should do things in, that would be great. thanks.
I am not interested to Leaked/Beta/Unofficial firmwares, but if you ask about Stock firmware, then KF3 is the latest, and for some country like China, Poland, KG5/6 is available officially, which is GB 2.3.4. But worldwide 2.3.4 is still coming soon. And if you are interested in flashing Leaked firmwares via Odin, then you could search in www.samfirmware.com OR under Dev section here in Intratech's thread.
Regards.
at the moment the leaked firmwares from samfirmware changing every week. The last one is KG6 and it seems to roll out from Samsung over kies in the next time. The greatest thing that bothers me is the missing changelogs. So you never have a comparsion about the different firmwares.
I've got a galaxy s2 from 02 and it is branded and running o2's flavour of software.
I've attached 2 screenshots to show the version I have.
Is it worth it for me to debrand, what would I realistically gain? I've looked through the forums and it seems there is newer generic firmware available. But there also seems to be mixed opinion as to weather it's worth upgrading. From what I can see I have 2.3.3 KF3 if that helps
It also appears that by flashing generic stock firmware via odin I will still be able to use kies so any future releases will download through kies using the firmware update feature?
Answers as always appreciated.
IF you download, from here, the latest stock Samsung ROM, then you will be able to fool KIES into thinking that your phone is no longer an O2 SGSII but a unbranded one. Thus you will be able to get the next available update of the official stock ROM when it is released via KIES.
The most important feature is an improvement in battery life.
If you stick with the branded ROM, then you have to wait a few months for the stock update to be customised by the operator and released.
This is the most important: if you flash an unbranded ROM, then you have invalidated your phone's warranty. You can simply reflash the O2 branded ROM, again available on here, this will put you phone back in warranty.
ok I see is there a link to the post that has the most recent fw? I will ofc check the dev forum stickies Many thanks for the swift reply and advice.
Without a doubt, so many good custom roms available and more newer stock firmwares. You can undo everything so no need to worry about putting it back to stock o2
cheers
Yeah I think I'll flash to generic stock rom then take in the updates from sammy, I'm blown away with this phone as it is running stock roms.
Will wait for ICS to be available on a un-official rom before I debate custom roms,
As soon as I got my sgs2 from O2, I debranded it straight away
Wow what a difference my phone is marginally faster one booted on 2.3.4 bootup is way quicker internet also seems faster.
Unlike X10i flashing new fw didn't basically factory reset the phone everything was as i left it bar the fw.
Had slight issue where it seemed to hang at the last big galaxy s screen for a minute or 2 when first booted but all phones seem to do this when flashed.
One question - my market hasn't changed os there a new one and should it automatically update?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Been looking for an answer online and can't seem to find one, my girlfriend bought a used bell gs2 and when i plug it in kies it tells me it has the latest software yet it seems that 2.3.3 as been out for a long time and should have been updated by now no?
Thanks
Kris
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
If you check this thread here UGKG2 is the only firmware bell has put out, so if thats the one you have, then yes, thats the only firmware there is, blame bell for being slow.
If you want to flash a new upto date rom, follow this guide, it also has download links, KK5 is generally a good 2.3.6 firmware at the moment, dont go for the ICS roms, there buggy.
It also should be non wipe aka you shouldnt lose anything as its stock firmware to stock firmware, but no promises and you would be advised to backup stuff first.
Hi, I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 on the three network. If I flash the H3G 2.3.3 firmware to the device using Odin will the OTAs still work? If not is there a way to flash the standard firmware back and have the updates working as normal?
Thanks
If you flash stock firmware for your region, you should be able to get updates OTA again. In saying that, I've seen more than a few cases where this hasn't been the case (Why ? No idea. Never happened to me/not important to me as I don't use stock firmware so I've never delved into the why).
So you can flash stock firmware, see if you can get OTA updates.
If not, might as well take the easy course & flash your stock firmware updates via Odin (like many people) rather than spend potentially who knows how much time trying to find out why OTA won't work in spite of you going back to stock
It works for kies and OTA
I downloaded the original 2.3.3 and flashed it to my Samsung Galaxy S2 and the OTA updates worked up to firmware 2.3.5 and then I plugged into kies and it updated to 4.0.3. I used this site http://www.sammobile.com/firmware/?page=3&t=1&o=1&m=GT-I9100&r=-1#modelsa
Thanks for the help guys.
Hi, I picked up an sgs3 the other day. The firmware on it is XXLF2. I was just wondering what the experiences were with regards to OTA update? Is it recommended or would flashing the latest LG8 fw for UK via Odin be better?
Thanks for any advice.
One of the reasons why it might come in handy to restore a previous update could be due to the fact that the new update will not be optimized for our phone and waiting for the release of a more stable version, use Odin may serve us to go back. A very recent example is the first update to Android 4.0.3 on Galaxy S2 where there were several people who wanted to go back to Gingerbread ... Of course, another reason could be that we want to load a firmware later, but that in our country has not yet been made available ... see Notes Galaxy and the German ROM which runs the network.
But Odin is not only original Samsung firmware to load, but also allows you to load ROM cooked in order to have more personalized and optimized.
Odin's software runs on Windows PCs, and lets you do the above, but now we see how the program works.
devid801 said:
One of the reasons why it might come in handy to restore a previous update could be due to the fact that the new update will not be optimized for our phone and waiting for the release of a more stable version, use Odin may serve us to go back. A very recent example is the first update to Android 4.0.3 on Galaxy S2 where there were several people who wanted to go back to Gingerbread ... Of course, another reason could be that we want to load a firmware later, but that in our country has not yet been made available ... see Notes Galaxy and the German ROM which runs the network.
But Odin is not only original Samsung firmware to load, but also allows you to load ROM cooked in order to have more personalized and optimized.
Odin's software runs on Windows PCs, and lets you do the above, but now we see how the program works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice1 thank you devid801. I've used Odin to flash ROMs on my sgs1 but the OTA update on sgs3 has me interested Suppose I could always flash via Odin the latest FW if OTA FW isn't the latest.
Thanks again mate.
we say that the telephone operators are slow to release updates, even compared to the parent, so if you do not want to wait using odin! read a guide before, and you always make a nandroid backup before making any operation. ..
devid801 said:
One of the reasons why it might come in handy to restore a previous update could be due to the fact that the new update will not be optimized for our phone and waiting for the release of a more stable version, use Odin may serve us to go back. A very recent example is the first update to Android 4.0.3 on Galaxy S2 where there were several people who wanted to go back to Gingerbread ... Of course, another reason could be that we want to load a firmware later, but that in our country has not yet been made available ... see Notes Galaxy and the German ROM which runs the network.
But Odin is not only original Samsung firmware to load, but also allows you to load ROM cooked in order to have more personalized and optimized.
Odin's software runs on Windows PCs, and lets you do the above, but now we see how the program works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Odin is beeing used in official service and repair centers to flash samsung firmware
As always two paths for ease of use one via Samsung Kies or OTA .
OTA will probably fail on rooted phone .
Join XDA flash stock firmware as and when you want .
My view is if you want to stay with Samsung /official path then do so but its the attempts to mix and match that lead to trouble .
jje
JJEgan said:
As always two paths for ease of use one via Samsung Kies or OTA .
OTA will probably fail on rooted phone .
Join XDA flash stock firmware as and when you want .
My view is if you want to stay with Samsung /official path then do so but its the attempts to mix and match that lead to trouble .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks jje. I think i'll stay stock for now but see what update OTA offers me Saying that, XXLF2 fw does not seem bad so far.
Will look to find what the differences are between LF2 and LG8 fw.
Thanks for all the feedback.
coldhandz said:
Thanks jje. I think i'll stay stock for now but see what update OTA offers me Saying that, XXLF2 fw does not seem bad so far.
Will look to find what the differences are between LF2 and LG8 fw.
Thanks for all the feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have recently flashed my Orange GS3 to XXLF2. I'm not getting any OTA updates post flashing and i know there is an update that gives you the option to auto aujust brightness on the drop down. Is this normal after flashing? Or has something gone a bit wrong?
Holder123 said:
I have recently flashed my Orange GS3 to XXLF2. I'm not getting any OTA updates post flashing and i know there is an update that gives you the option to auto aujust brightness on the drop down. Is this normal after flashing? Or has something gone a bit wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You no longer have Orange firmware .
You no longer have phone codes that match any upgrade .
Their is no upgrade for your phone model
Plus all the other usual answers .
Choice flash roms from XDA or return to Orange for an update .
jje