One Month with the CyanogenMod Custom Android ROM. Should You Install?

Radical!?!

Frustrated with the performance of the stock OS on my phone and envious of others who run newer, shinier versions of Android, I finally decide to take the plunge and install a custom ROM on my phone. There are plenty of how-to guides, quick reviews and videos demoing the bajillions of custom Android ROMs available, but I couldn’t find any that do a good job of describing what the process is like, or any reviews that seem to go much beyond initial impressions. My aim in this short series of posts is to help fill in those gaps. Hope you find them useful.

What is it?
CyanogenMod  is a custom version of the Android OS built by the CyanogenMod community. It’s  available for a large number of phones and has been in development since 2008. A month ago, I took the plunge and installed it on my phone (an HTC Hero on the Sprint network).

Why do it?
Though the Android platform is continually being developed, it’s up to the networks and the handset manufacturers to release updates for specific phones. In the case of my phone, the Hero, Sprint has stated that the phone will no longer be updated to newer versions of Android, so it’s permanently stuck at version 2.1, which was released in May of 2010.

In addition to being outdated, the stock firmware is also buggy. Though none are showstoppers, some of them can be pretty annoying:

• It is often slow to respond. The phone’s hardware is probably a little underpowered, and it can make things a bit laggy and slow -- especially compared to newer phones.       
• The phone would often reboot unexpectedly -- which ties up the phone for about thirty seconds -- most often when exiting out of the browser.
• Bluetooth was finicky. I’d often have to turn it on and off a few times to get it in sync with my car.
• Dismissing notifications would often snooze them instead. So they would come up again. And again. And again.
• If you lose GPS signal while using Google Navigation, it usually won’t find it again without first turning GPS on and off, which can be a big hassle when you’re supposed to be driving.
• Though Sense UI (HTC’s user interface and package of widgets and apps for their Android phones) ties neatly together your contacts with Facebook  it stopped syncing on my phone after the last official update
• Try as I might, I could never get the music player to show the album covers consistantly. It would for some, not for others, and despite all I've tried (embedding, linking, etc.), I couldn't get them all to work always.
• The phone contains a number of annoying apps installed by the network that can’t be removed -- NASCAR, NFL, SprintTV, etc.
• Short battery life. I could get through a day without recharging if I didn’t use the phone much, but if I did a lot of anything on it, it would start crying ‘feed me’ before the day was out. 

The current stable version of Cyanogenmod (6.1) is based on Android 2.2, so the ROM benefits from many of the features in the newer version of Android. In addition, the ROM includes many tweaks and enhancements done by the community to further improve the platform.

 There are a number of custom Android ROMs out there to choose from,  I decided to go with CyanogenMod because it is:

• One of the most popular
• Continually developed by a large and stable community
• Relatively well documented
• Focused on speed and stability
• Does not use HTC’s Sense user interface. Though it is a nice UI -- perhaps the best out there for people unfamiliar with Android -- it is a bit of a resource hog and a contributor to my Hero's sluggishness.

Installing The ROM
Getting the CyanogenMod ROM up and running the first time (or any custom ROM, for that matter) takes a fair amount of time and work. There are many guides to doing this online (including one on the CyanogenMod site), so I won’t go into detail here, but the basic steps are:

• Recognize that this can be a risky procedure, that it will void your warranty, and that there is the slight possibility of bricking you phone (in other words, making it not work).
• Make sure you have all of the tools necessary (which often come from a variety of places) and that you understand all of the steps necessary for the entire process.
• Root the phone: allows you to access, update, and back up the phone's firmware. A bit of research is required for rooting and backing up your phone, as the procedure varies based on the phone model and which version of the original firmware you’re running.
• Back up your phone: there are software packages out there that will back up your firmware as well as your apps. Unfortunately, a lot of them aren’t very clearly documented, and some of those often mentioned can be hard to find or no longer being developed.
• Install the new ROM, which may also include installing other software such as a new radio for the phone.
• Install Google Apps. These are distributed separately from Cyanogen, for legal reasons. Installing these allows you to access the Android Market, use Google Navigation, Gmail, etc.
• Re-install your old apps. Newer versions (2.2 and up) of Android remember what you have installed and will do this automatically.

So How Do I Like It?
I’ll post specifics about my month with CM6 very soon, including info about its features and performance.

Update: part 2 is here.