Upgraded my Samsung Galaxy S to the highly anticipated Froyo (i.e. Android 2.2) firmware more than a week ago. Main impression: the phone does seem more responsive. Previously (i.e. when running Android 2.1 aka Eclair), the phone is often in a state where the CPU is fully utilized and is unable to respond for no less than 10 seconds. With Froyo, there seems to be a huge improvement in task management, which is evident also from the improved responsiveness even when the phone is installing a new app (which used to stall the phone completely).
Battery life remains more or less the same as before. Without having data turned on, the phone can easily run for 2 days without recharging. With data turned on and with moderate usage, you can barely get through the day on a single charge.
Besides improved reliability, the most important features of Froyo must be Flash and App to SD. It is rather amusing to see animations on webpages, and they work at any zoom level. It’s particularly cute when you zoom out completely to see the entire webpage. Also, with Flash, Google Analytics and Google Financial charts are finally viewable from a phone. With App to SD, you can now install Apps to the internal SD storage, which is a generous 14GB on the Galaxy S.
Not forgetting to mention, the built-in browser works like a charm. Webpages load insanely fast. I find no reason to use alternative browsers now, given that webpages render correctly (used to have problem with the Google Adsense page with the browser on Eclair) and Flash is supported (not sure if they work in other browsers).
By the way, a tip regarding upgrading the firmware (did mine at the service centre): you may lose files in the internal SD storage. In my case i have previously applied the ext2 file system lag fix, which i think increases the possibility of getting corrupted files (i ended up with a LOST.DIR folder with lots of files in it). It’s probably a good idea to undo the lag fix first before upgrading, or simply backup the files in your internal SD storage first.
