Results of D/Ling ROM on Smartphone/Tablet?

[element_dragon]

Hello all,

Downloading a ROM (like Cyanogenmod) would be extremely appealing, if not for a bit of speculation:

1) Can you avoid getting a smartphone data plan?
2) Does it void the warranty (especially Square Trade's)?

Thanks for reading!

 

[jerofld]

1) No, your ROM has no impact on your carrier's plan.

2) Yes, but maybe only partially. Also depends on carrier. Sprint recently started servicing some rooted phones.

 

[John Redcorn]

Hello all,

1) Can you avoid getting a smartphone data plan?

If you're talking at&t they go by the imei of the phone, rom doesn't change that. They see a smartphone imei, they change you to a smartphone data plan.

I've seen plenty of talk on the internet about the way they know smartphone imeis is because they sold them and there are at&t users who've wrote about buying androids off ebay that were from one certain canadian carrier that has compatible freqs with ATT. ATT doesn't know the imei of these phones and those people are able to rock on with $10 unlimited dumbphone data. (this may have all changed I have no clue)

 

[wayrad]

Hello all,

Downloading a ROM (like Cyanogenmod) would be extremely appealing, if not for a bit of speculation:

1) Can you avoid getting a smartphone data plan?
2) Does it void the warranty (especially Square Trade's)?

Thanks for reading!

As already stated, running an aftermarket ROM won't alter your chance of getting transferred to a data plan. But you would have to download the ROM via wifi, or sideload it. Due to large file sizes those are the only practical ways anyway.

The ROM you run has nothing to do with your warranty. However, you must be rooted to flash a ROM, which in most cases voids the manufacturer's warranty. But it is generally possible to unroot, and with some third party warranties they don't even care if you root.

 

[element_dragon]

Thanks for the help, guys! Great stuff.