Speed Your Android Phone Up, ROM IT!

I’m planning on getting the topic of ROMing your Android phone in the future, however I’ve been asked a few times as of late how to make your Android phone faster and what am I running on my phone to make it blazing fast. The simple answer is that I’ve rooted, unlocked my bootloader for a custom kernel, and am running a custom ROM.

The more complex answer, and this is for the more initiated of those Android users out there, is that I’m running an unofficial nightly of CyanogenMod 10.1.

Say What?

So I have a Galaxy S3 by Samsung. Verizon did their worst as they usually do with their phones and locked it down. This, at the time, was very uncharacteristic of Samsung. All other carriers did not lock the device down and their users were able to get a head start on exploring the wonders of the Galaxy S3 hardware with different ROMs and kernels. Adam Outler and a few other gurus over at XDA-Developers were working hard on the task to unlock the bootloader. Long story short, someone leaked an unsecure bootloader to Adam and now we’re all able to enjoy the sweet, sweet joys of custom ROMs and bootloaders on our Verizon Galaxy S3s. Yea!

Many tech advocates love the fact that Android is so customization. How do we get a good portion of these customization  There’s the framework that allows for things such as custom launchers, your own browser, etc. The big thing is that the Android source is open source. Anyone can download the source and build it with their own modifications. This has lead to a bunch of enthusiasts coming up with custom versions of the operating system to make their devices lean, mean, and blazing fast. Custom ROMs end up being much faster than that carrier and manufacturer branded version of Android that comes on your phone when you pull it out of the box. The whole experience is like buying a brand new PC and then spending an hour or so cleaning off all the bloatware.

I’ve taken a liking to CyanogenMod. They’ve been a force since about the time the original Droid hit the scenes a few years ago. Since then they’ve become one of the most popular 3rd party non-manufacture variants of Android. CM is a ROM that is very close to stock Android. It is almost the same as owning a Google branded Nexus device. There is no bloat. Installing this on your phone will take things up a notch right off the bat.

I suggest you look into CyanogenMod for your Android phone. It’s like getting a brand new phone all over again. Read up on CyanogenMod’s website or head over to XDA for instructions on how to get it running on your device. Just one warning for those who are weary when it comes to voiding warranties, doing any custom ROMing or rooting your phone will void that phone warranty. Just be careful and follow all the instructions!

Update: Want to go further into the awesome? Put a custom kernel on  your phone for even more speed!

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I'm a software engineer. Look into the about page for more information about me.

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