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up vote 2 down vote favorite

Pretty much the title says what I want to ask!!

Are custom ROM different for different make of handsets? or is there only one cyanogenmod for say Android 2.2?

Some can please elaborate why a ROM is call as it is? I mean has it any similarity to Read only memory? I'm a newbie, please tolerate if the questions are silly..

Regards,

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FYI, my phone is Motorola Quench XT3, and couldn't find any version of cyanogenmod for that particular model.. – Vineet Menon Oct 30 '11 at 16:53

2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

The simple answer is Yes there are usually multiple versions of each Custom ROM. If not the ROM may be only usable on some devices.

Usually for each device model (or group of very similar devices) there is one custom ROM version. The reason are the different hardware each device is equipped with. Like in your desktop computer each component needs a suitable driver for being used. This starts with the display which sometimes even changes from model revision to revision and ends with WLAN chip used. As space and memory are significant on a Smartphone a custom ROM only contains the drivers needed.

Another reason for having different custom ROMS are the different cell phone standards. You have devices built for GSM/UMTS and some are designed to work with CDMA. The telephony stack has to be either the one or the other - again a reason for different ROMs.

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so, is it possible to use a closley resembling phone's ROM on my phone? eg. Moto Defy's ROM on Moto Quench?? – Vineet Menon Oct 31 '11 at 4:35
No, it is generally not possible to use a "similar phone's" ROM on your device. Most of the time hardware is subtly different and while some things will work, enough won't that the entire exercise is not worth your time. – Broam Oct 31 '11 at 12:56
up vote 1 down vote

ROM here would mean Firmware, which would be the Android OS in the device.

And like Robert has said, with varying hardware specifications across the devices, the ROM needs to be modified to include the respective hardware drivers so that every functionality of the phone works fine.

Also not every phone may be supported by custom ROM developers. Forums like xda-developers.com may have more information about the ROM's available for your phone.

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