Got my OG Samsung GTab on ICS!

[sedrosken]

I followed a guide somewhere on how to get a Samsung Galaxy Tab (which normally supports only up to Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread) onto 4.0.3 ICS. Mic doesn't work, camera's a bit flaky but I don't use either of those anyway. Everything else works perfect, much smoother than on Gingerbread. It involved installing the Clockwork Mod.

It was a SPH-P100 (which is Sprint's iteration) but now it identifies itself as a Verizon SCH-i800. Which is fine, because I don't have nor do I intend to have a data plan on it. And even if I did I'd want it through Verizon.

When a suitable package for Kit Kat (4.4) comes out, I will install that.

 

[Mercutio]

Honestly in a lot of cases your best bet for Android is to either stick with whatever the release OS was or move to Cyanogen. I've had a few devices move from Gingerbread to Honeycomb or ICS and normally there's some trade-off in terms of functionality for something-or-other. The only device that's made consistently smooth transitions has been my Motorola Xoom tablet, which is as old as that OG Tab but still seems to be fully supported by Google.

Most of the time, fully supported Cyanogen represents a real upgrade, but rooting and reflashing some devices (coughHTCcoughKindleFirecough) can be a royal PITA.

For the most part, your Android upgrades are system-level stuff that's not going to be terribly useful or interesting to an End-user. 2.3 to 4.x can absolutely be likened to the XP to Vista/7 UI transition and 2.3 is kind of the Windows XP of the Android world anyway, in that there are crap-tons of devs who really wish that they didn't have to support it and crap tons of users who wish their devices could be upgraded to do something newer, but there's too much of it out in the world to ignore it.

 

[sedrosken]

That's what I did - - move up to Cyanogen CM9.

 

[sedrosken]

Now it's up to CM11 - KitKat 4.4.2.