- Joined
- Oct 6, 2011
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When the first Apple iPhone came out I never really had any interest in a smartphone. In those days if my phone had a 1mp camera and an MP3 player I was pretty happy. It wasn't until the G1 that my interest was peaked for a smartphone and then the OG Droid when I just knew I had to have one. I tried a few cheaper options like some EVDO LG touchscreen phone that was returned within the first week. I exchanged that phone for my HTC Touch. I really loved that phone which came stock with Windows 6. Before long I was hacking Android onto the device. When the Droid X came out I grabbed it up quick.
This is where my root and rom addiction began, but still I didn't truly understand just how awesome Roms could be. There were plenty of great Roms for the Droid X and even the Droid Bionic, but with a locked bootloader they were mostly customized versions of Moto Blur. When the Nexus S was announced I was ready to throw my money at the computer screen I was using to watch the Google announcement.
Unfortunately for me the Verizon variant of the Nexus S wasn't released for months after the device was released to other carriers. Then there was the controversy that while the phone could be bootlaoder unlocked and rooted it wasn't truely a Nexus device since Verizon would not allow Google to update the device.
When I finally received delivery of the device I learned what a true stock vanilla Android experience was. No more lag, extra fluidity, no bloat ware. This was the perfect device! I was able to unlock my bootloader and root my device the day I took it out of the box without having to rely on hackers to create exploits. This was quite the refreshing experience. Then the overwhelming developer support started to come through. There must have been more than 100 roms for this device. We started to see the evolution of CyanogenMod. Roms like AOKP emerged to give avid CM users an alternative.
It was this device that set the bar for me going forward. I was disappointed if a device didn't come with an unlocked bootloader which was pretty much every device released by Verizon after the Nexus S. Later devices like the Nexus 6 and 6P were great, but I had to sneak them onto Verizon's network.
Which device turned you into a modder aka Romaholic? Are you over roms and developer features like an unlocked bootloader?
