Apps long story short. What are ROMS. How are they beneficial?

[teabagdad]

hi, .. how is a rom beneficial? sorry to sound ignorant , i just dont know what a rom is. Thanks.... i know its a OS. but doesn't it come with a os?

could it compaire to a windows 7 computer, then a bunch of kids make a ROM = OS and it's like me installing diferrent OS's on my laptop? to me that would be boring.

 

[alostpacket]

Community ROMs are helpful in that they add extra features and/or themes.

Some of these may include:
- random bugfixes
- overclocking support for your processor
- Widgets on a lock screen
- different launchers
- removal of "bloatware" (software installed by a carrier, eg Verizon)
- performance tweaks
- unlocking features (tethering, firewalls)

those are just some of the benefits, but I suggest anyone who is interested in rooting+ROMing get to know their phone and its features and apps and security/etc before they do something more advanced like installing a custom ROM.

Some of the drawbacks of custom ROMs:
- Voids your warranty in most cases
- May "brick" your phone permanently (rare but not impossible)


hth