Samsung Galaxy S II UK International 4.1.2 Jelly Bean Released and Impressions

After waiting months and months since Samsung first starting rolling out Jellybean in Spain, UK unlocked Galaxy S II (XEU) can now officially upgrade their phone and taste some of that Jelly Bean goodness and the latest TouchWiz Nature UX.

Like all firmware upgrade processes, make sure you take a back up of whatever you need from your phone.

Note: This update will wipe out your homescreen settings

You can update via OTA:


Or through Kies:

You'll need to update Kies before you can update your phone since Samsung just released a new version of Kies today

In the first hour, I'm regretting the upgrade. The UI looks so garish and cramped.  All your home screen configurations will be lost on the upgrade.

The new homescreen look	Lots of notifications when you first start it
The notification screen is busy	This is the last SGS2 update

Changes Noticed:

• Updated TouchWiz Nature UX
• Icons are now larger and more cartoony
• Ability to change the size of text in the UI
• Calculator no longer vibrates on key presses
• "Flick finger" Scrolling on web pages is more sticky and less smooth like other 4.2.1 devices
• Calendar now changed to S Planner and has a more iPhone look with browns and beige colors.  Today's agenda widget can now link to specific event rather than just pull up the date
• Music player controls have a 90's look to them with big round 3D looking buttons that stay on the screen.  Music player no longer closes when music is paused and you hit the back button.  It needs to be closed by End in the menu.
• New Gallery App looks and works a lot better - no more gyroscopic tilting tricks.
• Video Player can now take screenshots of the video and provides a button to rotate the screen even if you have screen rotation turned off. Similar big buttons found on the music player are present on the video player but they are just a white silloutte
• Kies Air is not included in the firmware.  It can be downloaded from the Google Play.
• New Delete All button in the Mail application.
• The notification tray is a lot busier with 33% of it consumed by toggles, sliders, and text.  Additional toggles added: Mobile data, Blocking mode, Power saving, Sync.
• S features added: Smart Stay
• Only Polaris Viewer 4.1 is installed.  The full Polaris Office 4.0 can be downloaded for free from Samsung Apps.
• microSD memory path changed from /sdcard/external_sd/ to /storage/extSdCard/
• Lose the ability to add shortcuts to the home screen

Battery life doesn't seem to have been impacted in any negative or positive way.

Correction: Battery life is dramatically improved.  The SGS2 uses up 1% every 3 hours on standby (WiFi off, very sparse phone usage, data off, Bluetooth off, not roaming) with Jelly Bean.  That's compared to 1% every 1 hour with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS).  That's 1 full day (24 hours) for only 8% battery.

Some more screenshots:


I'm really liking this firmware after using it as a daily driver for a few days.  I haven't had any crashing problems.  Everything from GPS, camera, WiFi, making/taking calls, and Bluetooth all work.  Jelly Bean is a very drastic change compared to Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) but really well worth the upgrade.  So if you're still on Gingerbread or ICS, I encourage you to upgrade to Jelly Bean.

*12/15/2013 Update on the battery life:

I get 5 days of standby on 50% of the battery.  Then I turned on WiFi and Simpsons Tapped Out and now I'm down to ~15%.