How to Flash a New ROM to Your Android Phone
When you bought your phone it was cutting edge, had the latest version of Android, and made your heart sing. A year or two later, it doesn’t get new updates, and the performance is a little sluggish. You can breathe new life into your phone–not to mention add a ton of useful features–by flashing it with a new custom ROM.
Why Would I Want to Do This?
There are many reasons someone might wish to install (or “flash”) a new ROM to their phone. You’ll get new features and customizations, you’ll get rid of all the bloatware that came pre-installed on your phone, and you can get stock Android instead of your manufacturer’s lame custom UI (I’m talking to you, Samsung). But most of all, you can upgrade to the most current and optimized version of Android, even if your phone has been all but abandoned by the manufacturer.
The sad reality is that most manufacturers and carriers quickly forget about old devices, and cease rolling out updates for them. Now while we understand the economics of the situation–it’s not profitable to pay the hardware company to create new updates and to support legacy phones–we still think it’s a shame that perfectly good phones are so quickly relegated to the support junk bin.
Take, for example, the Samsung Galaxy S III. When it was released in 2012, it was an incredibly popular (and powerful) phone. But Android 4.3 Jelly Bean was the last update it ever got–and it got it 6 months after Jelly Bean was released by Google. Sure, technology marched on, and it’s far from cutting edge, but it’s still a capable little device. Phone modders and customizers have made it possible for this three year old device to get the latest version of Android–Marshmallow–through custom ROMs like CyanogenMod. And, thanks to performance increases in later versions of Android, people are reporting that it runs better than ever.
So if you have a phone that the manufacturer no longer loves, but that you still love, flashing a new ROM to your phone is a great way to keep it feeling new and snappy.
NOTE: Any time you monkey around with the internals of your phone, tablet, or other device in a fashion the manufacturer and/or supplying carrier did not intend for you to, you technically void your warranty–at least certain parts of it–and you risk permanently bricking your device. That said, we’ve been rooting, jailbreaking, unlocking, reflashing, and other wise modding phones, tablets, consoles, and other walled off electronics for years without so much as a single hiccup, let alone a bricked device. Read the instructions carefully and you’ll be fine.
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