Couple questions from a Prospective Nexus buyer.

[I3ig Al]

Hi all, long time since I posted but I am finally looking to upgrade my phone and hoped I could get some questions answered before laying down money. I currently have a LG Optimus V on Virgin Mobile prepaid and while it has served faithfully for a year and a half, it has become unbearably slow of late.

I want to stick with prepaid service and the Nexus 4 is the best looking phone I can afford / am willing to shell out for. Obviously with Google I/O going on I need to wait and see if theres a new model coming but otherwise here are my questions:

What is the point of ROMing the Nexus, if it already has pure stock Android? I only ROMed my Optimus to get from froyo to gingerbread, and cut all the bloatware. What kind of things would I gain over stock with a custom ROM?


I have read all about the Verizon 30$ prepaid plan, but I can find no mention of it on the Verizon website, and the local Verizon store I called had no idea what I was talking about; is this plan dead and gone, and only grandfathered in old customers? if yes, what is my best service option for a new Nexus? if not, how do I get my hands on 30$ goodness?
Figured this one out, read EDIT3
Thanks for your time and I appreciate any and all answers!

EDIT: a few clarifications, I do not care about data speed, 95% of the time my phone will have wifi access, and when I'm on cell data the most I do is web browsing and GPS nav. I Also do not care about minutes allotted because I will use GrooveIP/Talkatone most likely.

EDIT2: just used Verizon's Chat with CS thing, the person said anything about a 30$ plan was a scam and not at all related to Verizon. I even linked an article talking about it on Fox News from last year, and she said they were misinformed...


EDIT3: omg I am so lame, I got confused, the plan I meant was the T-Mobile 30$ unlimited! I have found the plan and how to get on it, so that is taken care of. Still wondering about ROMs on the Nexus4 tho.

 

[gone down south]

ROMs give you granular control of the device at a very detailed level. This is a pretty vanilla phone in many ways, and you can really customize battery life, screen performance, radios, etc. with the right ROM.

 

[dbareis]

Hi,

Maybe you meant what is the point of rooting? Anyway I haven't worried about changing anything except I'm rooted mainly to run titanium backup.

 

[I3ig Al]

thanks for the reply Gone down south, I guess I just need to read through the forums and see what looks good.


Dbareis, no i did not mean rooting, I meant what advantage custom ROMs have over the stock jelly bean that comes with the Nexus 4

 

[ohyeahar]

Every custom ROM offers something different. A popular custom ROM is CyanogenMod. Here's why I choose CM over stock.

Better battery indicator on the status bar. Shows percentage rather than a vague icon.
Allows downward swipe on the right side of the status bar to access the Quick Settings shade. Normally, you?d have to do an awkward 2-finger swipe.
Can customize Quick Settings tiles.
Quick Settings tiles act as toggles when tapped and act as shortcuts when held. Stock ROM has this behavior reversed.
Smart Dialing. The default dialer doesn?t have this feature.
Expanded Desktop mode. Allows you hide the Nav Bar.
AOSP browser. IMHO, still much better than Chrome or any other 3rd party browser.
Allows the main lockscreen widget to be expanded by default.
Allows native customization of the notification LED.
Can customize the shortcuts on the Nav Ring.
Can customize the shortcuts on the Lock Ring.
Nice cLock widget.
Many other things. These are just the ones that come to mind.

 

[I3ig Al]

Every custom ROM offers something different. A popular custom ROM is CyanogenMod. Here's why I choose CM over stock.

Better battery indicator on the status bar. Shows percentage rather than a vague icon.
Allows downward swipe on the right side of the status bar to access the Quick Settings shade. Normally, you?d have to do an awkward 2-finger swipe.
Can customize Quick Settings tiles.
Quick Settings tiles act as toggles when tapped and act as shortcuts when held. Stock ROM has this behavior reversed.
Smart Dialing. The default dialer doesn?t have this feature.
Expanded Desktop mode. Allows you hide the Nav Bar.
AOSP browser. IMHO, still much better than Chrome or any other 3rd party browser.
Allows the main lockscreen widget to be expanded by default.
Allows native customization of the notification LED.
Can customize the shortcuts on the Nav Ring.
Can customize the shortcuts on the Lock Ring.
Nice cLock widget.
Many other things. These are just the ones that come to mind.

Hey thanks for the reply my only previous experience with ROMs was a CM7 based rom that was stripped to be as close to stock as possible for my Optimus V. The only reason I did it was to upgrade from Froyo to Gingerbread, so I didnt know what going from stock Jelly Bean to custom Jelly Bean would be like.

 

[RumoredNow]

Absolutely unlock your phone when you first get it...and root as well.

I tried a ROM, but went back to stock... You also have to weigh what you might be giving up. When I went to AOKP I gave up Cell Broadcast. That's an important feature to me so I reverted.

I found much more sustainable benefit from a custom kernel.