A review on Jusada’s ICS (Ice Cream Sunday) ROM for Samsung Galaxy Ace

I was thinking to try a custom ROM and for that I was looking for CyanogenMod (or CM) based ROMs. As there is no official CM ROM for Samsung Galaxy Ace. You have to try CM ROMs by other developers. Before flashing my phone with CM ROM I had flashed my phone with Stock ROM of version 2.3.3. And I wrote a how to post for that.

I picked Jusada’s Ice Cream Sunday ROM which’s based on CyanogenMod 7 and Android 2.3.7. It’s been a week with this ROM. And there are no uncertain restarts. Some time some crashing happens for some program. I am posting screenshots of my phone and some pros and cons that I found.

BUT before you start, make your mind that you can brick your phone. So you are on your own. Good luck.

Installation

I was in confusion on how to start with the procedure to flash my phone with this ROM. Though I had flashed my phone before through Odin. But this was some thing like running your phone in Recovery Mode.

So to install this CM ROM, you need to have a recovery software ClockworkMod 5 (visit this post for a step by step procedure to install it). Download the archive and have it somewhere in your phone SD card.
Download Jusada’s Origical ICS ROM from this thread of XDA Developers forum. (if you can not find the download, let me know I will share my dropbox link here)
Run your phone in Recover mode. That is pressing power + menu button simultaneously and install ClockworkMod
Install ClockworkMod and reboot your phone again in recovery mode
Now you will be in ClockworkMod recovery. Clear the partitions with this software and then do a factory reset
After this install ROM on your phone from SD card
Reboot your phone wait initially for some time and you will have ICS look on your phone

Pros

This ROM is light weight. No system apps like defualt file manager and office suite. If you wish to install go for your needs.
This custom ROM is based on the latest Gingerbread 2.3.7
You can move most of your apps to SD card. That makes most of your internal memory free. So more free space is good for phone only apps.
Support of Arabic and Persian language
You can change theme of your phone. Currently they are two. ICS and default Gingerbread theme
CyanogenMod settings gives you more command on the customization of your phone

Cons

No Urdu language
Pressing power button can end the call. No option available in Accessibility settings. (The checkbox to disable this function)
By default you will not get Synch accounts with Twitter and Facebook. Unless you install their native apps. Uninstall them and your can not synch. Where in Stock you can have Synch without having their native apps
Some time it lags and freeze. It makes harder for you to even switch between home screens.
Unable to run some popular apps and games (e.g. Need for Speed)
Some apps crash occasionally. (e.g. Settings and Go Activity -Go Launcher Ex-)

Final words

I am having this ROM, since I get a next stable version of CyanogenMod for Samsung Galaxy Ace. If you know some other great ROM for SGA. Please drop in comments.

Screenshots

Pakzilla