Samsung Galaxy S3

Dean said:
Made the switch to CM 11 Nightly (2014 04 18) from 10.2 Stable, and I'm very impressed.

I was skeptical to go with a Nightly since I had a bad experience on my S2 back in the day with a nightly DarkyROM, but I have yet to run into any issues with this one.

They've ironed out the one or two bugs that were in 10.2, as well as giving it some fresh interface tweaks. It's also more fluid and loving 4.4.

All round happy camper over here.
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Thanks for the post man. I am in same boat and was hesitant in going through all of the effort for a nightly. Will try this one.
 
Dean said:
Made the switch to CM 11 Nightly (2014 04 18) from 10.2 Stable, and I'm very impressed.

I was skeptical to go with a Nightly since I had a bad experience on my S2 back in the day with a nightly DarkyROM, but I have yet to run into any issues with this one.

They've ironed out the one or two bugs that were in 10.2, as well as giving it some fresh interface tweaks. It's also more fluid and loving 4.4.

All round happy camper over here.
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Is your camera working properly?
 
StrontiumDog said:
@Dean, can you post a link or 2 as a guide please? Noob alert over here :o
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Sure, I've written my own guide below rather than pasting links. I find my way the best for me, so you can either follow that or find one which makes more sense to you if others have some other way :)

Moshidi said:
First things first, are you rooted? If not, follow this link for a guide.
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Those were the days... these days it's a lot easier than that to root.

Rooting:
Search Google for an app called Framaroot - it's as easy as installing that and touching a button on your phone... done that lately for some mates' S3s.

Flashing Preparation
Download the CM11 Nightly .zip file (assuming you have the i9300 S3, you'd get yours from http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=i9300 - it's about 200MB ) and copy it to your external MicroSD card in your phone.

Also download the latest CM 11 Google Apps from http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Google_Apps - make sure it's the one which as of today is on the top of the list ie. the one for CM11. I use the "It Vends" link on the page since it then downloads in browser rather than over torrents. Copy it to the external MicroSD in your phone.

While those are busy downloading, install ClockworkMod (CWM) on the phone from PlayStore.
Open CWM app and tap to install CWM Recovery - though I rather suggest at this point buying the in-app purchase CWM Touch Recovery. The non-touch recovery module is a serious mission to use when it comes to flashing, even though the regular app seems easy to navigate on the phone.. trust me on this one the touch recovery is worth every cent, especially for a first timer.


Image Backup
Switch off your phone. Boot into CWM by holding the following three buttons: VolumeUp, Home and finally Power. You can let go of power once you see the Samsung SGS3 title.

You'll see it boot into a weird-looking interface that you've never seen before - that's CWM. select Backup/Restore and then Backup - this will do a "Nandroid"/Image backup to your MicroSD card... an optional extra step that's always good to do for those unlikely events.

Flashing new ROM
Note: Everything after this point will result in all content on your phone being wiped, so make sure you have all necessary data/info/media backed up or on your external MicroSD card rather than the internal phone memory. All purchased and free apps linked to your Google account can obviously be re-downloaded as before without paying again, and if you've been using a Google linked calendar and contacts, then those will obviously work as before too.

You're now ready for the fun, but quick part. In the CWM menu, select to Install .zip from SD card, and navigate to wherever you saved that CM-Nightly .zip file. Don't worry about unzipping yourself, it does all the work for you. DONT DO ANYTHING ELSE BEFORE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT STEP.

Once it's finished - it only takes a few seconds, do exactly the same for the GApps .zip file on your MicroSD (ie. Install .zip from SD, select GApps...zip). AGAIN, DONT DO ANYTHING ELSE BEFORE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT STEP.

Post-Flash House-keeping
IMPORTANT: Select the option in the CWM menu to Wipe Data/Factory Reset. This must be done at this step, ie. after flashing and not before. As weird as it may initially seem, it will make sense if you care enough to research the reasoning.
Don't think that you can skip this step and have all your stuff still there and avoid having to restore backups or make backups in the first place...it'll just cause chaos.

It's often good at this point to select the options in the CWM menu to clear the cache and Dalvik cache, though it isn't always necessary. Both clearances take seconds though so I like to do regardless.

At this stage you can select in CWM's menu to Reboot the phone and it should start up with the CyanogenMod splash-screen instead of the Samsung logo.. followed by being one of the smoothest S3s around.


Possible Issues

I ran into an issue where the Nightly wouldn't install - it was because I was using version 5.xxx of CWM, and CM11 requires CWM version 6.xxx
 
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Just installed CM 11 Nightly (2014 04 18).

Install was a breeze and went without a hitch. So far so good, small aesthetic 4.4 changes look good. Phone feels a bit laggy but its probably because its installing all of my apps again.

Camera works fine.
 
IMO CM is the worst ROM out there...They don't optimize it for the device as much as other developers do...I prefer Slimkat or Carbon ROM over it. CM must start making their more customisable as well, I mean what's the point of a 'custom' ROM if you can't customise it as much as you want to...And other developers add more features :)

Just my 2 cents...
 
Lag has gone - it was just the million apps installing and synchronizing at the same time.

Super smooth now.
 
Dean said:
Those were the days... these days it's a lot easier than that to root.
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I haven't gone through the process from scratch since I got the S3. Glad to see there's simpler ways of flashing now. No more excuses for those who haven't.

Brilliant guide btw ;)
 
Thanks Dean, gonna try it later this week. Managed to find a spare 2GB microSD that I will need to install CM11.

I found that after having the S3 for a few months (Sept 2012) that it somehow managed to kill two microSD cards, a 16GB and an 8GB one, just as I was getting the phone ready for an overseas trip. Not sure if it was because of the S3 or whether it was just their time to expire :(
 
StrontiumDog said:
Thanks Dean, gonna try it later this week. Managed to find a spare 2GB microSD that I will need to install CM11.

I found that after having the S3 for a few months (Sept 2012) that it somehow managed to kill two microSD cards, a 16GB and an 8GB one, just as I was getting the phone ready for an overseas trip. Not sure if it was because of the S3 or whether it was just their time to expire :(
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Ouch. What kind of microSD cards were they?

Can't say I've had issues with mine, same one for close to a year now. Was a cheap 32gb one so I back it up quite often in case it's was cheap for a reason.
 
Moshidi said:
Ouch. What kind of microSD cards were they?

Can't say I've had issues with mine, same one for close to a year now. Was a cheap 32gb one so I back it up quite often in case it's was cheap for a reason.
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i'll have to double check but since the 16gb microSD was bought in Shanghai it could have been a knock off. Still it served faithfully for about 2 years, the first 18 months in my blackberry.

The 8GB microSD was from my Samsung Omnia IIRC. Tried both cards in my SD card reader last night and I don't even get the option to format them. It's like they are both fried. Just too weird though that they literally both got messed up straight after each other. i.e. The 16gb one got screwed, then I put the 8gb one in and it too was messed. I was packing for my flight the next morning so I didn't have time to problem solve back then. Into a drawer they went and I forgot to check them out further.

edit: The 16gb from Shanghai was Kingston and the 8gb that came with my Samsung Omnia is Sandisk. The 8gb seems to be reading OK now on my card reader thingy.
 
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OrbitalDawn said:
Yup. Did it myself last night.

Takes a while to download the actual ROM through the programme, though.
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Takes a while because one runs it on one's phone, over wifi presumably?

When trying to download the files to my PC as per Dean's guide above, I had to try multiple times as the downloads kept failing resulting in only incomplete files being downloaded.
 
StrontiumDog said:
Takes a while because one runs it on one's phone, over wifi presumably?

When trying to download the files to my PC as per Dean's guide above, I had to try multiple times as the downloads kept failing resulting in only incomplete files being downloaded.
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Well, you run a Windows application that does the actual downloading and installing.
 
Shoaybd said:
Guys if you want the best custom rom for the S3 its Resurrection Remix 4.4.2 KitKat http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/development/gt-i9300-resurrection-remix-4-4-2-t1815285. I have been using it for a month and I can wirte reviews for ours on how it has transformed my phone. Halo, active notifications and transparent lock screen are the best of the many features.
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DAAAAAAAAM!!! i flashed this rom this morning and all i can say is it is SICK!!! Its quick, its customizable wow very nice neat rom!
 
mugikhan said:
IMO CM is the worst ROM out there...They don't optimize it for the device as much as other developers do...I prefer Slimkat or Carbon ROM over it. CM must start making their more customisable as well, I mean what's the point of a 'custom' ROM if you can't customise it as much as you want to...And other developers add more features :)

Just my 2 cents...
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Thanks for the heads up, flashed Slimkat last night and I foresee it being on the phone for the foreseeable future. It's slick, light, efficient, heavily customisable. Also the higher dpi the Rom comes with by default makes excellent use of the screen. I know you can set this on other Roms but Slimkat does it fantastically.

Coming from Pacman Rom, had to change as my phone would randomly reboot about twice a day.
 
Moshidi said:
Thanks for the heads up, flashed Slimkat last night and I foresee it being on the phone for the foreseeable future. It's slick, light, efficient, heavily customisable. Also the higher dpi the Rom comes with by default makes excellent use of the screen. I know you can set this on other Roms but Slimkat does it fantastically.

Coming from Pacman Rom, had to change as my phone would randomly reboot about twice a day.
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hmmm i will keep Slimkat in mind if anything should go otherwise with this the resurrection rom. Thanks for the review
 
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