Every phone has two components - Hardware and Software. The hardware is either made or bought by the manufacturer of the phone. The Software, for android phones, is made by Google. Many brands use the software made by Google as a base and use their skin on top of it, and call it their software. Some examples of these are One UI from Samsung, MIUI from Xiaomi, Color OS from Oppo, Realme OS from Realme, and Oxygen OS from OnePlus. These ROMs are called Stock ROMs for their phones. For example, the stock from Samsung would be the one with which it came pre-installed and the one which the company officially provides, i.e., One UI.
Problems with stock ROMs
Do not get me wrong. Stock ROMs are a very great piece of software. They are packed with features and are optimized by the company for their devices, at least in the initial phase. The problem begins when the company launches new models. Then it stops giving as much attention as it used to give to the old models. This happens especially to the budget and mid-range phones. So, just after a year or half a year of buying the phone, people begin to get updates which start to make their phone slow and stuttery. The same task now takes more time to complete than it used to. This is a very common problem in the android world.
Custom ROMs
So how do we solve this problem? Well, that's where Custom ROMs come in. They are ROMs that are made by 3rd party individuals or communities for android phones. They are generally based on the open-source part of Android and can range widely from simple vanilla android experience to full feature-packed beasts. Many people begin to use custom ROMs after the stock ROMs of their phones render them useless or very laggy. Some examples of custom ROMs are - Lineage OS, Pixel Experience, Paranoid Android, etc.
Demerits of Custom ROMs
Although Custom ROMs have many benefits, they have many demerits too -
Custom ROMs can't be installed on any phone. First, you have to find the specific custom ROM version for your specific phone model. You can install only that model on your phone otherwise it won't work. Currently, very few smartphones are supported by Custom ROM developers as compared to the number of android smartphones out there.
The process of installing Custom ROMs is quite complicated for someone who does not know what they are doing. It is not like Windows installation where you insert the USB into your computer and start installing. You have to either 'Fastboot' the custom ROM, which is a separate headache in itself, or you can use a custom recovery like CWM or TWRP and root your smartphone. These are complicated for a non-geeky user and rooting can also lead to security risks.
There is a prominent risk of 'bricking' your device (rendering it unusable) if you make the slightest of errors or deviate even a little from the procedure. If you do not perform the flashing properly, your phone can either get soft bricked (which can be recovered by going to a service center) or 'Hard Bricked', in which case your phone will be a brick and you can't recover it anymore.
Many custom ROMs lack some functionalities and may even have some major bugs like the camera not working, or VoLTE and VoWiFi functionality being absent, etc. In my case when I flashed Pixel Experience ROM in my Redmi 6A, VoLTE was absent and the volume slider keys were not working during calls. So you might face some of these problems after installing Custom ROMs to your device.
I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU NOT PLAY WITH CUSTOM ROMs TILL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. THE ENTIRE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUR DEVICE WOULD BE YOURS IF IT GETS BRICKED.
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