CyanogenMod 10.1 Running on the Samsung Galaxy S III (Video)

By Joe Levi | December 18, 2012 7:01 AM

The Samsung Galaxy S III is one of our favorite devices, despite its super-slippery back and pentile display. Within 100 days of its release back in May 2012, Samsung reported that it had sold an impressive 20 million units.

Some people love the Touch Wiz user interface that ships with the SGS3, some people hate it. We had to knock a few points off it’s score in our full review due to some frustrating behavior in the launcher and the horrible email client that Samsung included. Some of Samsung’s built-in apps were extremely useful, while others were cheesy after the novelty wore off. Chrome, in particular, seemed to get bogged down and was generally slow. Even after quite a bit of use, we still gave the SGSIII a “strong buy” when we covered it on After the Buzz.

Now, however, CyanogenMod 10.1 — based on Android 4.2.1 — is available for the Galaxy S III. Gone are the custom apps and gestures. Chrome has been replaced with its much faster little brother: Browser. Finally, you can have the latest version of Android — no more waiting for OTA updates – the way you want it!

How does CM10.1 on the SGS3 stack up? Is it fast enough to warrant changing from stock? Is it stable enough to run as your daily driver? Let’s break out some tools, apply some root, and get flashing!

Overall, the experience using this version of CM10.1 Nightly in the Samsung Galaxy S III was smooth and buttery, just like we expected. We didn’t come across anything that didn’t work, though it is still a “nightly” and things are expected to be broken or not yet fully implemented. One such area is the inability to specify the minimum and maximum clock speeds, though the Governor was switchable.

As far as benchmarks are concerned, it’s a mixed bag. Smartbench 2012 was faster in both Productivity and Games, but Quadrant and LinPack Pro scores were marginally slower than stock. That’s okay, the speed differences weren’t noticeable in everyday operation.

Quadrant: 4531 (5211)

Smartbench 2012: Productivity 4697 (3884); Games 1703 (1622)

LinPack Pro: 52.396 MFLOP, 1.6 Seconds (57.38 MFLOP, 1.46 Seconds)

Want to try CM10.1 on your SGS3? If you’re willing to assume the risk and get your feet wet, here are some links to get you started.