One of the most fantastic things about Android is its extensive developer support. While iOS may have the edge when it comes to game development, Android by far wins when it comes to custom firmware, also known as custom ROMs. A popular occurrence when a new device arrives on the market is having the new phone's firmware ported to other similar phones. This is what is currently happening to the cheapest HTC One series smartphone, the One V.
Because the HTC One V is so similar in specifications to the slightly older HTC Desire HD, Desire S and Incredible S, porting firmware to these devices is rather simple. The same display resolutions and same generation Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets being key factors here. This ported firmware gives owners of the three devices a near perfect Android 4.0 and Sense 4.0 software experience.
All three devices currently lack camera support under the ported firmware, while Wi-Fi hotspot support is lacking on the Desire S and Incredible S. The current Desire S build also does not support USB tethering just yet, other than these few drawbacks it's a fully featured Android 4.0 ROM. Plus, you even get the free 25 GB of Dropbox storage and all the other applications updated for Android 4.0.
If you know to flash ROMs then head straight to the Desire HD, Desire S or Incredible S threads to grab the necessary files, if not it is probably best you wait for the official Android 4.0 update that is said to be coming to these three HTC Android smartphones.
Kitguru says: It isn't on every mobile operating system that you see new firmware getting ported back to older devices.
I have the Inspire 4G, the exact replica of the Desire HD for AT&T. This was my first Ice Cream Sandwich ROM, and I LOVED it! It was glitchy at times, but the payback was 100% worth it when compared to Gingerbread. I restored Gingerbread back to how it was before I installed the ROM, and it was so laggy, unresponsive, and disgusting.
Now I’m stuck with Ice Cold Sandwich, without Sense. Sense is wonderful. Don’t get anything else besides HTC, especially not a Nexus device. Can’t wait to restore ICS + Sense 4…