After “testing” my phone for two days, I decided it was time to apply the upgrade to my Wife’s phone. She had downloaded the UCKK6 OTA update before I did and thus complained about the terrible battery life issue before I realized that it was the update. I’m hoping that this update will at least alleviate the issue.
So first things first – go download Kies: http://www.samsung.com/us/kies/
It’s a fairly simple application that includes all of the drivers for the Samsung phones. The layout reminds me of cough..itunes..cough. Here’s the ‘home’ screen with no device plugged in:
When you plug in your SG2, Kies will detect it, get the drivers installed and hopefully connect successfully:
I say hopefully…I found that if the PC that Kies is installed on is freshly rebooted, and this is the first time that you have plugged in the device, it will likely work fine. But if you have unplugged the device, or it simply doesn’t connect for one reason or another, here’s a few things I tried that seemed to work:
- Use the ‘Troubleshoot connection error’ button. It will re-install the Samsung device drivers and start over (disconnect your device first)
- As always, reboot the PC
- Simply unplug then replug the device
I also saw an error that asked me to unplug all other devices from the system (even though the phone was the only thing plugged in….). A restart of the Kies application fixed this one.
Additionally, if you have UAC turned on, watch for the UAC prompt that is ‘stuck in the taskbar’. This happens during the actual update and if you have to use the connection troubleshooter.
Once connected, you will hopefully see the firmware notification window:
Click ‘Update’ to start the process. You will have to accept a few EULA screens, and the update will begin downloading:
*NOTE* If you don’t have enough battery, the update will fail.
Once the battery has enough charge, start the update process again. During the upgrade, you will see a green Android image and a progress bar on the phone – don’t unplug it during this process.
The completed notification:
Keep in mind that you will need to reset all of your home screens and icons, and I also found that it changed what was synced from different accounts to my contacts.
Just curious to know how is the performance after the update. I have been thinking of upgrading to ICS on my Samsung Galaxy S2 but wanted to make sure it does not make it slow. Appreciate your response.
Hetal-
Performance seems to be as good, if not better. I'd like to write a post about all the major changes – but to answer your question, it seems to be a little bit better. For example, overall screen transitions (slide between home pages, back and forth in apps, settings) seem to be smoother. Also, the screen rotation feels more fluid.
Honestly, the biggest thing for me was battery life. While it's not 100% better (I live and work in an area with terrible cellular coverage, so that tends to drain the battery), it does seem to have eliminated the "30% battery by 4pm" issue. I don't have any hard data….but I see no reason to not upgrade to ICS.
jake
Thanks for the reply Jake. I got a text mesg from AT&T yesterday for upgrade. I'll do it over the weekend and let you know my findings. Appreciate your response.