Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Gets Ice Cream Sandwich, Unofficially [Wi-Fi Only Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Users Can Now Check Out An Early Alpha Release Of Android Ice Cream Sandwich]

Posted on TFTS by Robert Nelson on Tuesday, 27. December 2011 under: Computers & Computing, PCs, Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets

If you are curious about running Ice Cream Sandwich on a tablet and happen to have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablet there is a new alpha release that you can now play with. Of course, as the term alpha would imply, there are some pieces that are missing which means that this may not be right for everyone. That begin said, continue reading to see if you fall into the category that should install Ice Cream Sandwich on your Galaxy Tab 8.9.

First things first, this release is coming by way of the xda-developers forums and is noted as being ready for the “7310 (Gtab 8.9 wifi, no 3g), and 7300 with no 3g.” And for those wondering, it was noted that the 3G 8.9 is “being looked at.” Also important to state right up front — this is an involved process and one that you should only attempt if you feel confident. Plus, if something goes wrong, remember you did this at your own risk and therefor cannot blame any of the crew here at TFTS.

With that out of the way, this release of Ice Cream Sandwich for the Galaxy Tab 8.9 comes as an Alpha 1 release that is dubbed the “Xmas Dinner Edition.” Details of this release state that is is based on Android 4.0.3 and that it is rooted and deodexed, that it includes the motley kernel v2e beta and that it has support for WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth.

In terms of the installation process, aside from grabbing the necessary files from the xda-developers forums (click here), the process is broken down as follows;

In CWM recovery, clear your data/factory reset
Clear the dalvik cache (under advanced, or under the wipe menu in overcome cwm)
Flash the provided zip using CWM recovery
Flash gapps from CWM recovery
Bootup and setup your Google account
Install cpu control of choice, and set to interactive governor (this is required!)*tested SetCPU, No-frills CPU control, and Antuantu.
Give it a chance, this is a deodexed ROM and will boot slow the first time and when you use apps the first time.

Otherwise, while we noted three major features (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS) as working, there are some that are not yet working. According to the details provided, the non-working items include the following;

WiFi-only, but 3G will be looked at for a future version (no ETA at the moment)
Camera doesn’t work, don’t know when or if it can be fixed.
Some video limitations, youtube HD vids not working. Some stuttering will occur until we get the kinks out.
Charger screen doesn’t look correct when you plugin without booting up (charging status)
Voice search doesn’t work – May have something to do with this error: W/PackageManager(257): Failure retrieving resources forcom.google.android.voicesearch: Resource ID #0×0
Probably more that we haven’t listed, this is an alpha – please let us know.

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