Android OS update – Android 2.3.3 live on the Nexus S

The awaited Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread update has started rolling out for users of the Samsung Nexus S so if you have one keep on reading because I’ll try to give you boys and girls a quick run on how to get this update on your device. In order to manually upgrade your Samsung Nexus S to the latest version of the operating system you’ll have to follow the following few steps.

First of all get your hands on the OTA package HERE. Once you download it make sure to rename the file to update.zip, although this step is not exactly necessary for the Nexus S booloader, it does help to simplify things in the following few steps. Copy the file to your Nexus S and once finished copying the file, make sure to power off the device. When the device is powered off, hold the volume up and power button to reboot to the bootloader of the device. Now in order to navigate through the menus use the volume key and once you reach the recovery button, use the power button to confirm your selection. Once you get to see the warning triangle and arrow, hold down the power button and tap the volume up button and this should bring you to a menu. From the menu you now need to select “apply update from /sdcard” and chose the previously copied update.zip file from your list.

Now simply let the updater start installing and update your system, your radio and other partitions. Once this step is finished select reboot system now and there you go, you’ve successfully applied the Android 2.3.3 update to your Samsung Nexus S. There are some point you’ll need to take into consideration when updating the device though as there seems to be an issue with the new color scheme Google introduced in this update.

The issue with the Android 2.3.3 update for the Nexus S is referring to some users having their screen appear discolored. To be more accurate, colors seem to be washed out or on some displays they even get a yellowish tint. You might be tempted to play with the brightness and color settings of the device, but this won’t help as others have tried that method as well. There is an official statement given by Ry Guy via the Google forums and the change is intentional. This is his reply :

“With your new OTA complete, you may notice a slight difference in the way colors are displayed on your Nexus S. For Nexus S, we have adjusted the color temperature settings to more accurately reflect darker colors at all brightness levels. The Gingerbread UI being darker, we found that the colors were not as accurate when the device was being used at lower brightness levels. For example, some users reported that the initial color temperature was too high leading to some darker grays having a reddish tone; with the new color temperature this is no longer the case.”

It seems that this modification has been added to improve the colors in certain light conditions and I’ll make sure to add up some screenshots gathered to see what it looks like. In my opinion it’s not as bad as it may sound, but I think it all depends on a users viewpoint. Until next time, drop a line if you experienced any issues with your update and if your screen looks the same.1

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