Best Android Custom ROM: CyanogenMod

CyanogenMod huge success resides in it's ability to offer you an almost pure Android experience.  Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean is Google’s latest and greatest Android version, but you will only find this Jelly Bean flavor on Nexus devices, and there’s no way of telling when other Android devices, like Samsung galaxy S3 for instance, will be updated.

CyanogenMod is by far one of my favorite Android custom ROM's. CM essentially gives you full  access to features hidden deep into Android system and the ability to temper with your phones hardware. You will be able over-clock or under-clock the CPU and, as a result, CyanogenMod can offer significant battery life improvements. You will experience a redefined Android experience. CM transforms your device in such a way that your Samsung, Sony or Lg smartphone will look and feel like Google intended from the start, the Nexus way.

There are so many fantastic features in CyanogenMod ROM's, that is pretty difficult to pinpoint any of them, as different users tend to have different preferences. We will discuss just the most important of them so that you get a general idea and feel of what CM ROM's can do for you. CyanogenMod has proven itself, over and over again, to be more appealing than any of Samsung, Sony, HTC or LG's variations of Google Android mobile OS. Gone is the bloatware and gone are the ugly and buggy TouchWiz, Sense or Moto Blur user interfaces. They are being replaced by the more simplistic and bug-free Trebuchet UI. This helps CyanogenMod to be as streamlined and lightweight as it can be.

CyanogenMod is most definitely more smoother, stable, consistent and faster than any other stock ROM. This is made possible because CM takes full advantages of your smartphone's hardware through some clever coding and software engineering. You will be able now to customize your phone's processor clock speed and the amount of zRAM  that you will have at your disposal. There are others hardware related  tweaks that you can apply to your smartphone and you can find more about them on CyanogenMod own website.

Once you installed ("flash" in Android terms) CM on your smartphone you will have access to new features like profiles, quick menu access or the ability to customize the power menu. You can tweak the power widget, the lock screen shortcuts and even change what the hardware keys do. One can also fine tune their operator network, telling the phone to switch seamlessly between 2G/3G/4G networks and, very important for some users,  Wifi tethering just works!

Themes are also a big deal for CM fans. There are literally thousands of themes out there just waiting to be downloaded and applied. You can change the color and icons of the status bar, the color of keyboard keys and fonts and the general appearance of phone's dialer. 

It doesn't matter if your smartphone is high-end or not,  CyanogenMod should install on almost every smartphone out there without any problems. And this is the one big advantage that CM brings to the table. The ability to install the latest and greatest Android from Google on your old smartphone. You can now take full advantage of the latest developments in Google's original Android and  benefit from the tweaks that CyanogenMod team provides for the end user. 

A fairly popular nice addition in all CyanogenMod ROM's is the ability to change music tracks with volume keys when your phone screen is turned off. A long press on volume up or volume down will be enough to change tracks in any music player.

So, what are you waiting for? Here is a quick link to +xda-developers Google Plus page where you can find more details about your specific phone and appropriated CyanogenMod version.

By Aleman Adrian