Back in March, we reported that HTC was planning to port Ice Cream Sandwich to a whole laundry list of its previous devices, including the Desire S, Incredible S and the Desire HD. While no date’s been pencilled next to those names, the community of Android hackers are trying to beat HTC to it: a port of Android 4.0.3 has just landed for the Desire HD, and we’re gonna tell you how (and why) to get it.
Right, so, you want to whip up an HTC Desire HD Ice Cream Sandwich? You need the right ingredients. For a start, you need to root your Desire HD. We’re gonna get this bit out of the way right now: you do al this stuff at your own risk. It should work, but it’s not our fault if anything goes wrong. Right?
How to get Android 4.0
Want to root? Check out this very helpful post. Your rooted HTC Desire HD should have S-OFF, and with ClockworkMod Recovery installed. It’s also worth backing up your files to the SD.
Ok, next step is to download this file. It’s the Primo-S v3.4 ROM (not 3.3 as seen int he video above), which is the port of Ice Cream Sandwich you’re after. Once downloaded, connect your Desire HD to your PC and move that Primo-S zip file to the root of your phone’s SD card.
Right, now, disconnect the phone, turn it off and reboot by pressing the volume up and power buttons at once, until it launches into Recovery Mode. Select ‘Backup and Restore’ and then click ‘Backup’. Now, you want to wipe everything: select ‘Wipe data/factory reset’ and ‘Wipe Cache Partition’, as well as ‘Wipe Dalvik Cache’ from the ‘Advanced’ menu.
Lastly, return to the main Recovery Mode menu and choose to ‘Install zip from SD card’, obviously selecting the Primo-S ROM. Do it right and the phone will begin the process of painting your Desire HD with lovely Ice Cream Sandwich goodness. All done? Click ‘Reboot system now’.
There. You should now have Ice Cream Sandwich and a modified version of Sense UI powering your Desire HD
Why upgrade?
The HTC One V is essentially the same phone as the HTC Desire HD, and this ROM is a near direct port of the version of ICS you’ll get on the former. The screen resolution is the same, despite the difference in size, as is the processor, so you’ll know from our review that the One V runs HTC’s Sense UI well enough, if a little more slowly than on the One S or One X.
What you will get with the Primo-S ROM, though, is a whole lot of Android 4.0 joy:
1. Cloud Storage
Android 4.0 and HTC’s tight Dropbox integration gives you 25GB of free cloud storage, which means all your photos and files can be backed up, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be kept secure in the Cloud. Currently, this integration does a tighter job of OS-wide support than Apple’s iCloud.
Only time will tell if HTC kicks you off of this scheme for rooting, of course. If worst comes to worst, you can always fall back on Microsoft’s SkyDrive, which gives you up to 25GB of free cloud storage. HTC’s smartly built it right into the OS.
2. Smarter Multitasking
HTC’s really spun its Sense UI into something glorious with Android 4.0, taking the right mix of stock Android ‘Holo’ style design elements and splicing a decent amount of common sense through that. One such master stroke is the multi-tasking app, which shows an isometric 3D lineup of screenshots of your most recently-used apps. It’s the best interpretation of what Google’s done with multitasking that we’ve yet seen on Android.
3. Beats audio
The Desire HD just missed out on the party. HTC’s Beats buyout saw it slap the tech into pretty much every one of its handsets since. Thankfully, the Primo-S ROM for the Desire HD brings Beats super-powers. Say what you will about what that benefit really boils down to (audio equalizer, anyone?), but it’s a definite boon.
Source: Android Authority
