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I'm a software engineer but no strong desire to play with my phone a lot (beyond getting apps).

Here's what I found:

I went to the Cyanogen website and found a list of features. But not even the ones that seem the most useful seem that compelling:

  • Control focus of camera by touching the screen.
  • Overclock processor
  • Change the theme, background color (green/red to protect night vision :)

Am I missing something?

The risks include: * Potentially difficulty with installing some apps like Gmail. (Risk seems small but spending a half hour (hopefully) fixing such a problem would be enough to dissuade me from moding.

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This is somewhat difficult to answer, in my opinion. We can list all of the features we like about CM, but if you don't find them compelling then they aren't very useful. What kinds of things would you consider "worth the effort"? – eldarerathis♦ Jan 3 '12 at 16:55
I think this question more or less covers the objective aspects of what you get from rooting, custom ROMs included. Like eldarerathis says we can't tell you what matters to you. As a side note, your title doesn't make sense; you don't need to unroot to install CM. – Matthew Read♦ Jan 3 '12 at 17:02

closed as not constructive by Matthew Read♦ Jan 3 '12 at 17:00

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

The features that make me continue using CyanogenMod are:

  • No carrier/manufacturer bloatware or hidden services to deal with. Even custom ROMs are vulnerable to carrier bugs if they aren't vetted properly for leaks (a la CarrierIQ).
  • Far more regular updates than most carriers/manufacturers deliver, meaning you get the latest upstream patches within a much more reasonable timeframe. Many devices receive support from CM after official manufacturer updates have ended, helping them stay secure.
  • Theming ability, particularly the newest versions which wrap it into a nice theme manager app.
  • I can build it myself and examine the source, if I so choose.
  • The extended CM settings like status bar tweaks, quiet hours, rotary lockscreen, and so forth.
  • I like the look and feel of vanilla Android
  • Rooted, not bothered by carrier updates that could break root, and some extra useful things under the hood (like shipping with a sqlite3 binary).
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up vote 0 down vote

A feature I personally find very useful is the possibility to jump to next/previous music track with a long-press on the volume up/down hardware buttons.

Also sometimes the available cyanogenmod android version is higher/newer than the official version of your device manufacturer.

It is not bundlet with an abundance of non-uninstallable apps like most manufacturer-branded devices are.

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