As of the moment, the latest incarnation of the Google mobile operating system is Android 4.1 Jelly Bean which was unveiled at Google I/O a little over a month ago. This early, several devices have already been given the Android 4.1 refresh and the list includes Google developer devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi. Included in the list but not a Google developer device is the ASUS Transformer Pad TF300. Other manufacturers such as Samsung have also confirmed that the update is expected to land on their devices very soon.
Though this may be the case, some capable handsets are still waiting to get updated to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the predecessor of Jelly Bean. Others on the other hand will get stuck in the Gingerbread generation just like in the case of the Bell HTC Incredible S released in Canadian territories.
Looking back, a lot of users of HTC handsets are a bit disappointed with the way the manufacturer is releasing updates. Point in case – the HTC Desire HD. When HTC released its ICS plans earlier this year, the Desire HD was supposed to get the ICS update only to be taken off the list last July. And to make matters worse, a fully working yet unofficial ICS ROM for the handset was released by the developer community.
This is bad when you come to think of it but the case of the HTC Incredible S from Bell is a lot worse. Back in July, the ICS update landed on other versions of the handset released in other territories but apparently, this will not be the case with the HTC Incredible S variant released by Bell in Canada. The confirmation came straight from Bell which made the announcement via Twitter but HTC Canada’s official website has something different to say and still contains update information that says the ICS update will be made available for the handset.
With this kind of contradictory statements getting released and yet no ICS update getting unleashed, we can’t blame several users of the Bell version of the HTC Incredible S turn to ICS-based custom ROMs from the developer community just to experience Ice Cream Sandwich on their devices. Though not exactly the same thing, they wouldn’t have to contend with the delays and cancellations from HTC.
As for the HTC Incredible S, the handset is no longer a spring chicken but still has some pretty components under the hood. It has a QualComm MSM8255 SnapDragon chipset in its internals that brings to the table a 1 GHz Scorpion processor and 768 MB of ROM. The internal storage of the handset is a bit measly at just 1.1GB but memory expansion is possible on the handset so this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Its display is a 4.0-inch SuperLCD panel with a 480 x 800 resolution while its camera department includes a rear 8MP shooter and a front 1.3MP snapper.
