Advantages of Ice Cream Sandwich | Android 4.0

Millions of users must've cheered the news of the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update rolling out. The latest OS from Google is a new lease of life for most Android Smart Phones.

Here's a summary of what you can expect after updating your Android to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Ice Cream Sandwich, or ICS for short, improves the performance of the Android phone in some areas and promises better battery life - so, it's kind of like you're getting a free hardware upgrade.

There's also a lot of new functionality that garnishes Ice Cream Sandwich, a lot of which is concentrated in the browser, but the general usability of the interface got a boost too with the latest from Google.

Advantages Of Ice Cream Sandwich:

• Improved user interface
• Faster web browser with added features
• Slightly better graphics performance
• Slightly better battery life
• Stereo sound in videos
• SNS integration into phonebook
• Better UI for switching apps and killing them
• Face unlock
• Built-in data usage monitor

Data usage monitor

Ice Cream Sandwich comes with a Data usage monitor built in, which will replace apps from the Play Store for most people.

The Data usage monitor can track both mobile data and data over Wi-Fi. It has a simple UI that lets you pick a period over which to inspect each apps data usage and you can also set a warning threshold and a total data limit.

You can also set the date when the operator resets your data usage, but it's annoying that this option doesn't show up unless you've used the phone for a month.

New web browser

The new web browser is one of the best things about Ice Cream Sandwich - it's faster and has some really useful new features.

Finally, there's one more browser-related advantage to having Ice Cream Sandwich. You can use Google's Chrome for Android, which brings some much coveted features. You can read our review of the beta (it's still in beta) over here.

Slightly longer battery life

Ice Cream Sandwich showed promise for improved battery life.

If you're asking whether it's worth updating your Android 2.3 Gingerbread to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the answer is an unequivocal yes. The user experience improves in multiple areas and there's nothing lost after the update.

Ice Cream Sandwich will extend the life and it will continue to be a highly popular Mobile OS. Looking further ahead, an upgrade to Android 5.0 Jelly Bean is less certain.

End Note:

Updating to Ice Cream Sandwich will boost the performance a bit in some use scenarios. You might not notice it in games (46fps vs. 51fps isn't that much of a difference), but you'll definitely notice it when browsing.