Custom android ROMs are a big hit these days. Ever wondered why?
They are like ‘aftermarket custom upgrades’ for your phone. Sure, it sounds fancy.
Before you dig deeper into why install custom ROMs and which one to install, let’s take a little time out to understand custom ROMs first.
What are ROMs, Stock ROMs and Custom ROMs?
Let’s solve all these puzzles.
A ROM is your phone operating system. A stock ROM is the version that your manufacturer has shipped along with your phone. This is the intended OS for your hardware. Your phone manufacturer provides warranty for the hardware considering you operate it using the stock ROM provided with it.
A custom ROM is an aftermarket ROM that you can install on your device. It’s a fully standalone version of android OS and it includes its own kernel and services. So once you install a custom ROM on your device, it will run with full capability. The only difference between a stock ROM and a custom ROM is that custom ROMs are optimized and customized by someone in some way.
A custom ROM is a stripped, optimized, and modified version of the stock ROM most of the times.
Why Install Custom ROMs?
A custom ROM has various advantages over a stock ROM.
- Frequent updates
- Lesser hassle in getting updates
- Faster bug fixes
- Massive-scale beta testing
- Loyal community
- Better performance
When it comes to stock ROMs, carrier and ROM developer have to work together to bring out any updates. Usually, carriers put limitations on how the new update is distributed. As a result, you see one part of a continent getting the latest updates while others having to wait for another six months before their devices can update themselves. This isn’t the case with custom ROMs. The developer team is the only one to decide when to push the new update via OTA.
Here are some real reasons to install a custom ROM on your android device.
- Nothing beats the performance of a custom ROM. There are some custom ROMs that don’t deliver great performance but then you can also find some custom ROMs that deliver much better performance compared to their counterpart stock ROMs.
- Optimized kernels means a custom ROM can give you a lot of power. For example, if you want to save battery, you can run a ROM that has an undervolted kernel. Alternatively, you want to power up your device for maximum performance, you may consider installing a custom ROM that has an over cloaked kernel.
- Custom ROMs have no useless apps and services. The developers usually strip the useless garbage that comes with stock ROMs to make the OS more efficient. You can expect huge performance upgrades with custom ROMs when there is less garbage in there.
- Custom ROMs are easy to update. There is no fuss. The developer will listen to community feedback and release a new version. The new version will be available for everyone via OTA. So you don’t have to uninstall anything. Just a few clicks and you will get the update.