Why custom ROMs for android phones are like Chinese toys!

CyanogenMod, a popular custom ROM for android phones

Ok, I will admit it. I am tired of changing custom android ROMs on my Samsung Galaxy SII. I am running custom ROM and I am unable to boot my phone since last 2 days. Which ROM is giving me the sweats? Well, it doesn't matter. I have tried CyanogenMod, Slim Bean, MIUI and many more(these are the latest that I have tried, I cannot remember many others). Some are fast, some are customizable, some have unlocked features, some are based on a version of android which is not yet available for SII and increasingly all of them claim to be jack of all trades.

Installing custom ROMs has become increasingly easy. First, it required special software(e.g odin) to flash custom ROMs on your phone but now, once you have rooted your phone, it's as simple as downloading and installing from a zip. Custom ROMs can be installed as easily as themes!

But not without their own set of issues. First, rooting(required for installing custom ROMs) still requires some level of confidence about your computer skills and rooting voids warranty of phone. Even if you are confident enough, there are scores of custom ROMs for your phone out there( http://forum.xda-developers.com/  is a good repository) and choosing one among them is a matter of blind faith. Many of the ROMs are made by enthusiasts who offer absolutely no support and in my experience, most of them vanish after one or two release. This has been remedied to an exten with the emergence of well maintained ROMs like CyanogenMod and Slim Bean which even after updtaes but point to note: my phone ran on Slim Bean and it refused to boot after a well intended update :|

Not everybody has the heart to stay without his/her smart phone in case something goes wrong while installing a custom ROM(it does go wrong 5/10 times) and re-install all favorite apps after every install. Besides, performance improvement through custom ROMs doesn't matter much on a capable phone like SII (I have hardly noticed a big difference in performance on a custom ROM) and if you consider the argument, no enthusiast ROM developer can really know your phone better than the company which made it! Besides, my friend is always particular to point out the security issue arising from installing custom ROMs: what if its code includes a backdoor to sneak out all of your confidential information? If Apple can do it, enthusiast developers can go all the way stealing your information!

If you are excited about custom android ROMs, by all means go for it but remember; they are like Chinese toys which appear to be pretty good but do not last long . Sooner or later you will come back to original ROM which came with your phone!