Tired of Vodafone Ireland still trailing behind the curve, I decided to upgrade the Galaxy Note myself. Again. A year ago I installed Ice Cream Sandwich. Now we finally have Jelly Bean.
Only, not quite. This time I’ve eschewed not just Vodafone’s particular mix of Android, but Samsung’s too. Up until now I’ve stayed with the stock firmware so that I would be reviewing the standard user experience. This time I decided to go the whole hog and “root” the phone – which basically means giving myself administrator privileges so that I can change whatever I like. Obviously that involves some risk, but it makes your device a lot more interesting. Particularly it means you no longer have to stick to official builds, but can try out customised versions of Android.
A word of warning first though. Certain models of the Note, and several other Samsung Galaxy phones, are vulnerable to a problem known as “BrickBug”. Due to a design fault, if the memory chip it contains is erased in the wrong way it can never be written to again. Thus the device is rendered absolutely unusable and – short of an expensive mainboard replacement – irreparable. Which is depressing. So proceed with caution!
It can be worked around safely, but I won’t attempt to give comprehensive instructions here. Go straight to the horse’s mouth – the invaluable XDA-Developers forum. Actually it’s well worth looking around there before you do anything with an Android phone.
Indeed it was here that I came across the version of Android I chose to use: Sweet ROM. This is one guy’s personal mix that he released to the public, but I think he got the balance pretty right. And unlike many custom versions of Android it’s designed specifically for the Note and so retains all its pen abilities. Here’s the (almost) complete feature list provided by the author – which you can skip if you hate jargon:
CHANGELOG
- LT9 Firmware
- Kernel Philz XXLT9 v5.08.5 (thanks Phil3759)
- Modem LT3
- Deodexed & Zipaligned
- Full Root
- SuperSU (thanks Chainfire) & busybox
- 24 Toggles including working 2G/3G toggle controlled in Settings (Silver 3D theme thanks Dr.Ketan)
- Full Airview in Gallery, Video, Lockscreen Notifications, Email & Message. Partial in Snote & Splanner
- Multi Window Add All Apps S4 white theme
- SG4 Weather Widget
- Samsung Camera Shutter Sound on off hack
- MMS Hack – No SMS in call Log, 200 recipients & No SMS to MMS Auto Convert
- TW Launcher rotate 270 degrees
- Call record and no ascending ringtone & 2G/3G hack
- Ink Effect Added to Settings/Lockscreen
- Smart Rotation & Smart Stay
- LockScreen Shortcuts, News Ticker & Weather all working
- 4 Way Power Menu
- Enabled extra widgets Negative Colors etc
- Added Nova Launcher
- added Flash Player
- S4 Wallpapers (modded SecWallpaperChooser.apk)
- Resized Popup Browser with call up app (thanks vijai2011 & kam333)
- Transparent Status Bar with White S4 style icons & circle percentage battery
- Added Internet Speed Meter Lite
- Sub Symbols in stock keyboard
- Build prop tweaks for battery & performance
- All Mods & Hacks done myself (unless mentioned) using LT9 firmware
- and more I can’t remember
To translate: it’s a lot of thoughtful tweaks done by an experienced user. And lovably, it cuts out most of the pre-installed (and irremovable) apps that phones come burdened with. Only real essentials are there; the rest you can choose whether to install.
It’s a great mix and I’m enjoying using it – it’s like my phone came back from a holiday to the feature. Now I have root though it’s almost trivial to switch to other customised versions, and I’ve no doubt I’ll be trying some more.
Related articles
- Sweet ROM video demo (youtube.com)
- Tweak now available that lets you run TouchWiz and stock Android on one Galaxy S4 (news.yahoo.com)
- [Report] Samsung Galaxy Gear to come in Five Different Colors (goandroid.co.in)