Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 CM 11 M7 Install Guide and Review

I have owned the S3 for a year and a half now. Given the fact that my phone was out of the 18 months of promised updates from Samsung and that my device was out of warranty already I decided to get rid of Samsung TouchWiz crap and move to something new.

Thus was born the idea to root and flash a new ROM on my device. This article is a step by step guide to moving from the stock ROM to CM 11. 

If you start off with a stock Samsung ROM, you first need to unlock the bootloader of the device. For Samsung devices, you need to do that by rebooting the phone in the download mode. (Similar to fastboot mode in other devices)

Once the Bootloader is unlocked, all that remains is flashing a new ROM by installing its corresponding zip file.

It is pretty simple!

NOTE: As a precaution, before starting the install of the custom recovery, just download the appropriate zip file for the ROM that you plan on flashing and store it on the external SD card of the device. Make sure the ROM is the one for your device. This is one of the main reasons for a bricked device.

The following steps are almost similar to the instructions wiki page on the CyanogenMod wiki. You may refer to them as well. 

Installing a Custom Recovery

There are many ways to install a custom recovery on your device. I will list the way that uses Heimdall to achieve the goal. Many people use Odin as well for Samsung devices, but I found Heimdall a little more trustworthy. I had rooted a Samsung Galaxy S (GT – I9000) with it as well.

1.   Download Heimdall. http://glassechidna.com.au/heimdall/
2.  Follow the install procedure for Heimdall. http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_and_compile_Heimdall
3. 3)      Once heimdall is installed, the following link covers the remaining steps extremely well. 
4. http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_i9300
5. Follow the steps from Step 2 in installing the custom recovery section.

Installing the Custom ROM

1.  Just boot the device in download mode – Home + Volume UP + Power
2.  Create a backup of the existing ROM – this will help you restore your ROM should things go wrong  with the new ROM.
3.  Wipe Factory Data/Reset
4.  Navigate to Install zip from SD card and to the directory where you saved the zip file for the custom  ROM.
5.  Install. Once install is done, press reboot now and you are done. 

      Review

So far so good. Absolutely no complaints! It looks stable.

In the 9 hours that I have used it, I have not come across any major problems.

The camera works fine.

Battery drain does not seem to be a problem either. 

There are a few glitches that I have noticed:

1. Bluetooth is not working! This is major. Needs
2. The notification light remains on when the phone is charging. Even when the screen is turned on. It is pretty annoying and I ended up disabling the notification light.
3. The notification light turns to the color that indicates full battery at 90% charge. The phone however, charges upto 100%. Some bug with the notification light it seems.
4. The lights for the capacitive back and menu buttons light up even when using the touchscreen and there seems to be no way of turning them back off. It takes some time getting used to.

But overall, a very good and stable ROM.

Here are a few screenshots of the ROM :