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I'm pleased to say that I've been able to get Android 4.0 running on my Samsung Galaxy SII using this CyanogenMod 9 experimental Build curtesy of codeworkx.
I've been running CM7.1 since it was released and my phone has been running very smoothly. The battery life has been great (easily 24 hours between charges and could last 48 hours at a push with normal (ish) usage!), apps all behave as normal, widgets are great and the camera has also performed as you'd expect a cameraphone to do so. The only issue I have had is that the headset volume is a bit too loud for me.
So given that I was very happy with that setup, how would I adjust to CM9 otherwise known as Android 4.0.3?
Having used honeycomb on the Advent Vega I was used to the new UI. With Android 4.0.X Google has introduced a completely new UI - one that it is very different to gingerbread (Android 2.3.X) but not in a distracting form or one that takes long to learn. It's almost disappointing.
I was bored with CM7.1 and was itching to use Android 4.0 but (in my opinion) most of the changes are under the hood and will ultimately be used by apps and therefore not necessarily seen by the end user. What this does of course is make a more robust operating system.
OK, so upgrading from CM7 required a complete wipe and a clean install - this is the scary part, but you can always do a nandroid and /or a titanium backup to ensure that you can always go back to a previous state. I never do this! I've done this so many times, that I know I will be able to get back from a bricked state with just a little tinkering (and much googling!). Of course, should you not be confident or not sure if you want an experimental build as your daily phone, then you should ABSOLUTELY backup your data!
Most of my data is stored in the cloud or on the SD Card, so a complete wipe causes me no great concern (You can restore SMS messages as well).
So anyway...
Once installed (seems a quicker install than CM7) you boot up (which also seems quicker) and you get the usual Android log in type screen. Skipping on a bit...I just downloaded all of my apps as fresh installs from the Android Market. I prefer this method as opposed to a titanium backup and restore. Seems just as quick and it helps you de-clutter (do I really need angry birds?).
And then boom...not literally but no 3G. As some of you may know I have recently moved to T-mobile which has activated the roaming arrangement with Orange and for me to get 3G I have to manually select the Orange network.
But I could not manually select the network operator, each time I tried in always returned an error.
Bummer!
So after a couple of days using this build I decided that I needed 3G data and decided to go back to CM7. I then remembered something I had read - any problems just update to CM9 from CM7 without the data wipe. So, I loaded CM7 (I wiped, installed CM7 a couple of times), manually selected the Orange network and once I knew I had a 3G signal I booted into recovery, wiped the cache and the Dalvik cache (not sure I needed to) and loaded CM9.
Finally, I have the phone running on the experimental CM9 build linked above and I have 3G with 954kbps down and 373kbps up - acceptable for me.
I can report that over the last few days I have seen some rapid battery drain which was fixed by a wipe and re-install and now the battery is behaving as it did i.e. lasts all day and I charge it over night. Obviously, I can't say for sure that the battery life is fine, but let's remember that this ROM isn't an Alpha release yet.
So, if you are wondering if you can install a customer Android 4.0 (ICS) ROM on your Samsung Galaxy SG2, then the answer is yes. Does it work perfectly? No.
Samsung themselves are working on their own version of Android 4.0 with TouchWiz which looks like being released (leaked) in the next few months (there are already pre-release versions available).
The good folks behind cyanogenmod are touting a CM9 release in the next couple of months - this ROM I'm using is stable but has a couple of major issues e.g. camcorder doesn't work. I believe we'll see a CM9 release candidate within the next few weeks and from then it is anyone's guess. Patience is a virtue (or so I'm told).
If I can conclude with a final thought on where Android 4 puts us in terms of everyday use:
From a hardware perspective the SG2 does everything I need a phone to do; Android 4 offers a mobile operating system that drives the hardware smoothly and has many apps that enhance the user experience.
Therefore, it's going to take one helluva phone to get me to upgrade within the next 12 months!
Even though I've spent a couple of hours tinkering with my phone (it really wasn't much more than 2-3) I had and now have a phone that just works.