Galaxy SIII - custom ROMS

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LarzGearbox

37 posts

Geek

#113447 17-Jan-2013 10:52

Apologies if this should go in the main SIII topic and/or has already been covered in there, but reading over 300 pages is a bit daunting, anyway.....

I have just upgraded to an SIII from the Ideos X5 and am trying to get a handle on the preferred options for rooting, recovery and ROMs.

I have had a look at XDA but am a bit overwelmed. Looking for a quick overview of where I should start.

I'm also assuming that custom ROMs are better the stock firmware?? If not, i guess i'm happy staying stock.

kiwitrc

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#746226 17-Jan-2013 11:05

Have a read through here http://www.androidnz.net/2012/06/at-your-own-risk-how-to-root-your.html

Some people prefer the stock others custom. Wanamlite for example offers both. I prefer the custom ones myself, but each to their own.

LarzGearbox

37 posts

Geek

#746233 17-Jan-2013 11:07

kiwitrc: Have a read through here http://www.androidnz.net/2012/06/at-your-own-risk-how-to-root-your.html

Some people prefer the stock others custom. Wanamlite for example offers both. I prefer the custom ones myself, but each to their own.

Thanks - what ROM are you currently using??

kiwitrc

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#746234 17-Jan-2013 11:08

Wanamlite 5.5 as of this morning

dpw

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#746346 17-Jan-2013 14:02

kiwitrc: Wanamlite 5.5 as of this morning

This statement exactly echoes my sentiment, especially the last bit. "Better" or "best" are relative terms... relative to your requirements, time of day, quality of your coffee that morning, or the size of your dog's poo the night before, etc. Things are a bit more stable for me these days but in the past I have chopped and changed ROM very regularly. If you do it sensibly it shouldn't be harmful.

If you're new to custom ROMs perhaps start with something close to stock and has all the mods "baked in". Later down the line once you have more experience you can try out more customisable ones.

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LarzGearbox

37 posts

Geek

#746348 17-Jan-2013 14:10

dpw:
kiwitrc: Wanamlite 5.5 as of this morning

This statement exactly echoes my sentiment, especially the last bit. "Better" or "best" are relative terms... relative to your requirements, time of day, quality of your coffee that morning, or the size of your dog's poo the night before, etc. Things are a bit more stable for me these days but in the past I have chopped and changed ROM very regularly. If you do it sensibly it shouldn't be harmful.

If you're new to custom ROMs perhaps start with something close to stock and has all the mods "baked in". Later down the line once you have more experience you can try out more customisable ones.

I knew using 'best' wasn't a good idea.

I was familar with all the ROMs on the Ideos X5 and settled on CM7 which seemed to be the most used and stable at the time.

I guess I'm trying to work out which ROMs for the S3 are accepted as stable and reasonably common in the community (like I said XDA is full of ROMs, no idea where to start).

Stock with all the mods 'baked in' definately sounds like where I want to start - is this where Wanamlite would lie?? I also looked at Omega as this seems to have the most replies in XDA.

kiwitrc

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#746349 17-Jan-2013 14:11

dpw:
kiwitrc: Wanamlite 5.5 as of this morning

This statement exactly echoes my sentiment, especially the last bit. "Better" or "best" are relative terms... relative to your requirements, time of day, quality of your coffee that morning, or the size of your dog's poo the night before, etc. Things are a bit more stable for me these days but in the past I have chopped and changed ROM very regularly. If you do it sensibly it shouldn't be harmful.

If you're new to custom ROMs perhaps start with something close to stock and has all the mods "baked in". Later down the line once you have more experience you can try out more customisable ones.

Actually what I meant is that I just upgraded to 5.5 from 5.4 this morning. I am really happy with Wanamlite ROMS's they are rock solid. I use them as they come and dont bother hacking around with CPU etc these days.

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nzgeek

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#746388 17-Jan-2013 15:19

Custom ROMs for the SGS3 tend to fall into one of two camps: those that are based on Samsuhng's stock firmware, with modifications; and those that are based on open-source firmware such as CM or AOSP.

I used to use a Wanamlite ROM on the SGS2, and it worked quite well. It's based on the Samsung stock, but with various bits removed or replaced. The biggest benefits of the stock firmware base are that it'll be fairly stable, and that you'll be able to use many of the features that Samsung have added e.g. the screen staying on while you're looking at the phone.

If you want to go down the CM route again, I'd recommend version 10.1. There isn't a stable version yet, but the nightlies are fairly stable on all Exynos 4 devices (including the SGS2 and SGS3). I ended up moving from Wanamlite to CM because I didn't like how some of the Samsung modified core apps looked/behaved and preferred the open versions of the apps.

If you're not sure which version to use, give both a go. Install whichever one you want to try first and have a go for a few days. When you're ready to swap, boot into CWM recovery and create a backup, then factory reset and install the other ROM. If you decide that you liked the first ROM better you can simply restore the backup.