Initially, the Samsung Galaxy Note should have gotten its first taste of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich during the first quarter of 2012 as announced by the Korean smartphone and tablet manufacturer in the past. Sad to say, that did not happen as confirmed by Samsung itself and further announcing that the update will be delayed until Q2. However, the ICs update for the massive phablet will come with a Premium Suite of applications to make it worth the wait.
Buy the Samsung Galaxy Note starting at $249.
While waiting for the official Ice Cream Sandwich update to be pushed to the Samsung Galaxy Note, an official ROM for the phablet that is being developed by Samsung leaked and the folks over at RootzWiki managed to get ahold of the said leaked ICS ROM for the phablet. The ROM is for the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy Note and it is rather odd that a leak for a carrier version of the device surfaced before the international variant of the phablet. The folks at RootzWiki managed to test the leaked ICS ROM for the Samsung Galaxy Note and they have attested to the fact that it is stable enough for daily use though the ICS ROM still has a couple of bugs.
In addition to that, it has been confirmed that features like phone calls, MMS, stereo Bluetooth, audio quality, GPS, LTE connectivity and the like are all working flawlessly. Not only that, features specific to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich such as Face Unlock are also working. Changes from the Gingerbread version of the phablet were also noticed such as the addition of new memo and calendar widgets and the Samsung Planner getting renamed to Calendar. The leak is not without issues as mentioned above but these are pretty minor when you come to think of it. Also, the leaked ICS ROM for the Samsung Galaxy Note did not come with the Premium Suite of applications which we are supposed to get once the official ICs update gets pushed to the phablet. Before you run and start flashing this leaked ICS ROM onto your Samsung Galaxy Note, please be reminded of the risks involved in tinkering with your device but we’re pretty sure that you are already well aware of what those are, right?
The popularity of the Samsung Galaxy Note is unexpected given the fact that it is a niche device. It doesn’t lack for power under the hood though with a QualComm MSM8660 SnapDragon chipset leading the way internally. A combination of a Scorpion processor clocked at 1.5 GHz and a full gigabyte of RAM is responsible for the smooth performance of the phablet while its expandable internal memory is pegged at 16GB. It also has a dedicated Adreno 220 GPU to handle graphical concerns while its display is a massive 5.3-inch SuperAMOLED capacitive multitouch panel with a 1280 x 800 resolution. It also comes with an impressive camera department that features a rear-facing 8-megapixel autofocus camera and a front-facing 2-megapixel snapper for video calls and self-portraits. Its massive 2500 mAh power pack gives it up to 10 hours of talk time and up to 252 hours of standby time. Buy the Samsung Galaxy Note starting at $249.
