Summer is not upon us yet, and Winter is far from gone!! But Ice Cream Sandwich is here to stay, across seasons. This time around, we have a new Custom ROM for the Samsung Captivate users, who want to taste some Android 4.0 on their devices.

XDA member vibranturk has released a custom Ice Cream Sandwich ROM for the Vibrant, based on Teamhacksung’s ICS Port. Amongst all the custom ICS ROMs out there today, the ones for the Galaxy S i9000, and its variants including the Captivate are the most stable, and fully functional ROMs, which you can depend on for daily usage. Thats something, considering newer and more powerful devices like the Galaxy S2 are yet to see a fully stable ICS ROM, considering it is already marked for an official update later this year.

So let’s get all the fluff out of the way and head on straight to how we can you up and running with Doc’s Master ICS ROM on your Captivate.

Warning

The steps and methods included in this guide are considered risky. Please do not attempt to try this unless you know exactly what you are doing, as it may render your device unusable, and your pocket lighter by the amount it takes to replace it. You have been forewarned!!!

Compatibility

This guide is applicable only for AT&T’s Samsung Captivate i897. Check your phone version in Settings – About Phone. It has to be “i897” for this Ice Cream Sandwich Rom to be compatible with your phone. If it’s not i897, simply don’t try this ROM on your Android handset — don’t even think about it, if you care about your Android device.

Official Development Page

You can visit the official development page for Doc’s Master ICS ROM V2 for detailed information on the ROMs features, development progress, and to download updated versions of the ROM

Download Link

Doc’s Master ICS ROM V2  ( You can also visit the Official Development Page above to check for the latest version)

File Name : Doc’s Master ICS Rom v2 by VibranTurk – Cappy.zip  |  Size: 153.2 MB

Pre-Installation Requirements

  • Rooted Captivate with Clockworkmod recovery installed.  If you are not rooted, this link has a nice collection of guides.
  • Installing/Flashing this ROM will erase your apps and data. So, it’s very important you back them up, before proceeding further. This excellent Android backup guide would help you.
  • Fully charged battery

How To Install Doc’s Master ICS ROM on the Samsung Captivate

  1. Download the Doc’s Master ICS ROM V2 (link provided above) to your PC
  2. Connect your phone to PC via USB cable and transfer the downloaded file to the root of your phone’s internal SD card
  3. Power off the phone
  4. Reboot into recovery by holding both volume keys and then pressing power key
  5. Once you are in Clockworkmod Recovery, scroll to Backup & Restore and select Backup (This will make a full backup of your existing ROM, and save it to the sdcard. You can restore from this backup, if something gets messed up with the installation.)
  6. Now Perform a full wipe.  1) Navigate to Wipe data/Factory Reset–>Confirm wipe on the next screen 2) Go to Wipe Cache Partition –> Confirm Wipe Cache on the next screen 3) From the Main menu, select Advanced–>Wipe Dalvik Cache–>On  the next screen confirm Wipe dalvik
  7. Next, Select Mounts and Storage from the main menu. On the next screen, scroll down and select ‘Format System” and confirm Format on the next screen.
  8. Now go back to the main menu and select ‘Install Zip from sdcard’–> ‘Choose zip from sd card’ –> Select the ‘Doc’s Master ICS Rom v2 by VibranTurk – Cappy.zip’  file you transferred in Step 2. This will start flashing the ROM to your device.
  9. Once installation is complete, go the main menu and select Reboot system. The phone will now reboot.
  10. Wait for the phone to reboot completely. After it has rebooted, do not touch anything for 10 minutes, so that the kernel can settle down. After 10 mins, you can start setting up the phone.
  11. In case you get a bootloop after flashing the ROM, remove battery, reboot into recovery and repeat Steps 8 through 10. Again, once the phone has rebooted–Do Not Touch Anything for 10 mins. After 10 mins have passed, start setting up your Captivate.
  12. That’s it!! Congratulations on getting Ice Cream Sandwich on your Samsung Captivate
Some Tips to get the best out of your battery, quoted from the development thread:
Some tips to get more battery life :Firstly Calibrate battery-comes calibration app with rom too…
Secondly Don’t OC
Enable Force Gpu Rendering on Developer Options
Disable auto sync for accounts
Disable GPS and wifi when you dont use
Disable automatic brightness and set a low level
Disable auto rotate if you don’t use
Disable data usage setting
Disable any Sytem animations
Disable any Launcher animations
Disable Widgets in Drawer option on Launcher settings-Drawer
Disable error-usage reports on launcher settings
Disable logging and notifications at Superuser settings
Disable outdated binary notification at Superuser setting

Try this out & do let your friends who own a Captivate know about this guide too. And if you like this ROM and want to share your experience with us, do let us know in comments below.