Why do people upgrade their phones with questionable ROMSs?

[Dari]

Why do y'all always need the latest and greatest? It's a phone. That means its strength is in what the OS can do and what the appmakers can do. Fucking around with the root of the system sounds like it really doesn't pay off productivity-wise and people just do it cause they have nothing better to do. Are there any benefits to rooting phones other than curiosity?

 

[Sheep]

Getting rid of carrier bloatware apps, getting rid of obtrusive carrier skins, adding tethering, adding additional customization options, improving battery life, improving responsiveness/removing lag...should I go on?

 

[ChronoReverse]

Rooting isn't the same thing as a custom ROM. Custom ROMs isn't for everyone but arguably, rooting should be done by everyone to increase the security of their phones (i.e., if your phone is rooted, you KNOW when an app tries to get root access whereas on an unrooted phone, a malicious app can gain root using a exploit and you'd never know).

 

[shabby]

Are there any benefits to rooting phones other than curiosity?

Free tethering.

 

[WelshBloke]

Why do y'all always need the latest and greatest? ... its strength is in what the OS can do and what the appmakers can do...

I think your second sentence there answers your first.

 

[cl-scott]

Why do some people feel the need to add all kinds of customizations and enhancements to cars? Why are some people obsessed with their physique? Why do fashion trends exist?

For some people it's just an expression of their individualism, some people (myself included) like not having to wait around for the carrier to finally approve some software update... With a rooted phone I can run a custom kernel like imoseyon's excellent LeanKernel which is undervolted for battery life and also strips out all the excess stuff. I also love his *X governors, like interactiveX, which is the same as the default interactive on Android, but shuts down one of the two cores (on the Gnex) when the screen is off for even more battery savings.

There are some very good technical reasons to root a phone and run a custom ROM. Along with that, some people just enjoy that kind of thing. Different people value different things, and I've no doubt that there is something you care about a lot that plenty of other people could really care less about.

In the end, you are perfectly welcome to abstain from unlocking your phone and running a custom ROM, but as it will not affect you in any practical way if someone else chooses to root their phone and run a custom ROM, maybe it is best to just agree to disagree on the value.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Well, I know that my Galaxy Nexus was DEFINITELY faster after I installed a custom rom. When I first got the phone, I was actually a bit disappointed that it didn't run ICS as smoothly as I had hoped. But I stuck a custom ROM on there the day I got it and it was noticeably smoother.

After that, I pretty much just stuck to CM9, which was pretty darn stable. Occasionally I'd check out their changelog and see if any major improvements had been made in the recent nightly builds, and if so, I'd flash the new nightly (no need to wipe). It was essentially the same as the stock OS, but a little more responsive and a lot more customizable.

Now I'm on Jelly Bean and I've found a rom that seems to work well. I do flash new versions of it when they come out but I don't bother switching roms constantly. That's more trouble than it's worth.

On my last phone, as development for it matured a bit, I ended up with the same rom installed for probably six months.

So there definitely is a middle ground between stock-only people and flash addicts. I think both sides are a bit silly.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

It's fun

 

[pm]

For me, I would say something like "The Samsung S2 chirps when the battery is fully charged and that's waking me up at 2am, how do I fix this" and people would say "flash ROM suchandsuch" and there were plenty more examples of minor niggles that I had with the stock Samsung ROM that the number one recommendation was to change ROMs, plus it took them like 7 months to release an ICS ROM and I was impatient.

But I agree with you, I think my ROM flashing days are over. My next Android phone, I'm just going with Nexus and I'll take whatever Google gives me.

 

[RockinZ28]

I'll usually find a ROM I like and stick with it if there are too many annoyances on the stock ROM. I still try a new one every so often though to see if there are any substantial improvements.

Root is a must though. I don't want my carrier telling me how my phone has to be. So far on the Verizon S3, I've removed the WiFi notification, added a WiFi toggle in the quick dropdown menu, changed the color scheme of the drop down notification menu, use adblock apps that require root, and disabled the exchange email security so I don't have to give my employer permissions to wipe my phone and enable a pin/password on screen unlock that needs to be changed every month just to check my email.

 

[Anubis]

Getting rid of carrier bloatware apps, getting rid of obtrusive carrier skins, adding tethering, adding additional customization options, improving battery life, improving responsiveness/removing lag...should I go on?

basically this, t here are features in the rom i use that don't exist in any version that comes shipped on any phone on the market

 

[ponyo]

Depends on the device. I'm running CM9 nightly on the HP Touchpad because it's awesome and allows the Touchpad to run another OS that wouldn't otherwise be possible. I'm running 2.3.3 stock Italian ROM with CF-Root on my original 7" Galaxy Tab and have for more than a year. The Euro ROM just adds back the phone function AT&T stripped way. But my Galaxy Nexus is completely stock and will stay that way as long as Google updates the phone. Same for the Nexus 7.

 

[Dari]

Rooting isn't the same thing as a custom ROM. Custom ROMs isn't for everyone but arguably, rooting should be done by everyone to increase the security of their phones (i.e., if your phone is rooted, you KNOW when an app tries to get root access whereas on an unrooted phone, a malicious app can gain root using a exploit and you'd never know).

This isn't something that the manufacturer can provide? A clean, rooted, rom that is independent of the carrier?

 

[Chocu1a]

Why do y'all always need the latest and greatest? It's a phone. That means its strength is in what the OS can do and what the appmakers can do. Fucking around with the root of the system sounds like it really doesn't pay off productivity-wise and people just do it cause they have nothing better to do. Are there any benefits to rooting phones other than curiosity?

Lmao...ok?

You are on a tech forum asking people why they want the coolest/newest fun tech? It is no longer just a phone. It is a portable media consumption device. Every form of communication in your pocket. HD entertainment in your hand.

And to question root? Seriously? How about total control of your device. It opens capabilities your phone maker probable never dreamed of. Fixing problems your carrier couldn't give 2 shits about. Enabling services that are foolishly carrier blocked. Ad-blocking.
Really, open your mind.
*// did that last part come off as too rough?

 

[Bman123]

Why did you word it as questionable roms? There are devs out there that make roms way better then the stock BS that comes on your phone.
If I can flash a rom that makes my battery last longer I will do it in a heartbeat and I have never owned a android phone that I didnt root and put a custom rom on

 

[RockinZ28]

This isn't something that the manufacturer can provide? A clean, rooted, rom that is independent of the carrier?

Here's a good reason for root/ROMs.

My Asus Transformer TF101 tablet got updated to Android ICS with an official OTA update from Asus. Ever since, myself and many others have been experiencing a bug called SoD (sleep of death) and random reboots.

Mine is especially bad with SoD. Basically, whenever you let the tablet go into standby, when you come back and press the power button to wake it up, it doesn't. The display never turns back on. So you have to hold down the power button and reboot it. This happens to my tablet every time, within one minute of standby. So I'm forced to run an app called WakeLock that prevents the tablet from going into sleep mode. This greatly increases battery usage when the tablet is idle.

Asus has done basically nothing to fix this. The dev community has been trying all sorts of stuff, and solved it for many people. Unfortunately, all methods didn't help me.

So today I checked out XDA, and saw they have ROMs for the new android version Jelly Bean. They are very early and still have lots of bugs, but I just flashed one and my SoD issue appears to be gone. Its too early to tell for sure, but it's already a great improvement as I lasted over 30 minutes without an SoD, something my tablet has not done in months without wakelock.

Also who knows if the TF101 would ever even get JB officially from Asus.

 

[Dari]

Lmao...ok?

You are on a tech forum asking people why they want the coolest/newest fun tech? It is no longer just a phone. It is a portable media consumption device. Every form of communication in your pocket. HD entertainment in your hand.

And to question root? Seriously? How about total control of your device. It opens capabilities your phone maker probable never dreamed of. Fixing problems your carrier couldn't give 2 shits about. Enabling services that are foolishly carrier blocked. Ad-blocking.
Really, open your mind.
*// did that last part come off as too rough?

Why did you word it as questionable roms? There are devs out there that make roms way better then the stock BS that comes on your phone.
If I can flash a rom that makes my battery last longer I will do it in a heartbeat and I have never owned a android phone that I didnt root and put a custom rom on

Because people constantly mention carrying around multiple ROMs in their phones. Crazy.

 

[Raduque]

I don't bother with custom roms anymore, really. On my Galaxy S II, I'm running a version of UCLE5, the official ICS upgrade, with a toggles mod and visual mod to change the battery from green to blue. I am running a custom kernel, though, Siyah.

 

[Dari]

I don't bother with custom roms anymore, really. On my Galaxy S II, I'm running a version of UCLE5, the official ICS upgrade, with a toggles mod and visual mod to change the battery from green to blue. I am running a custom kernel, though, Siyah.

So there are kernels and ROMS that work independently of each other? Fascinating.

 

[gorcorps]

Because people constantly mention carrying around multiple ROMs in their phones. Crazy.

What? Since when? Most people run a single ROM. They may try different ones first, but I haven't heard about anybody dual booting. It's not even really possible. Apparently your definition of "constantly" matches my definition of "never". I'm beginning to think you're complaining about something you don't have accurate info on...at all.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

What? Since when? Most people run a single ROM. They may try different ones first, but I haven't heard about anybody dual booting. It's not even really possible. Apparently your definition of "constantly" matches my definition of "never". I'm beginning to think you're complaining about something you don't have accurate info on...at all.

Think again...

This is for my phone.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1511186

 

[ChronoReverse]

This isn't something that the manufacturer can provide? A clean, rooted, rom that is independent of the carrier?

They can but they don't. It's the way of the world of carriers =/

 

[Yuriman]

I was running ICS months before it was officially released on my Galaxy S2.

Last week I put my wife's phone on the charger at 5%, and decided to check her battery stats. It had been 4 days 12 hours since it had last been on the charger - with the stock battery.

On XDA, most people refer to the stock carrier/manufacturer ROMs as "crap" - bloated and slow, with bugs that have been fixed long before in AOSP.

 

[thescreensavers]

for me with my Gnex on VZW Custom Roms mean latest software now, not 6 months from now.

 

[notposting]

Since I have switched to the joy and pleasure of running Windows Phone I have not needed to do this. :hmm:

Though I haven't waited for Verizon to release the updates either since the .cab files for the updates are available on MS servers.



That being said, I threw different ROMs on my OG Droid, though it *does* get tiring restoring and fixing everything up the way you like it after awhile. It's now running some BB version of Gingerbread and is on permanent alarm clock duty.