Those close to me know that I am a gadjet freak. While I have bought a lot of tech items what many don’t know is that I beat the sh*t out of them before I retire them. So my Wii which has seen 5 years is still used everyday and is being worked upon (emulation, dos, etc) almost every week. Same goes for my TV, Laptop, Tab and other devices. So essentially I eek out every last paise that I paid for them before they can die on me and in most cases I gift them to someone known for a second life. I ended up buying a Samsung Galaxy S2 (upgraded from a Nokia basic model) two years back. I intend to keep it for another 3 to 4 years unlike other phone aficionados who change their phone every year or whenever they sneeze. So as a true tech explorer I optimized my phone, installed launchers, good apps, cleaned it up regularly and maintained it well. When Samsung was hesitant to release the Jelly Bean upgrade to my phone in India (because they wanted to cash in on S2+), I ended up installing a Spain version from Sammobile using ODIN. However one thing that I could not do was to increase the battery life. In fact after Jelly bean and Google Now my battery life went down hill. I was adamant and wanted to fix it. After several attempts I decided that the best way to manage your phone is to first have full control over it.
For android phone it meant gaining root access (remember unix classes) or simply ‘rooting’. I googled, got the necessary information, build up the required bravery (the phone might die if done wrong) and finally went ahead. It was very simple. After that the next major step was to install a customized firmware (software for the chip inside phone) called Custom ROM. Though the most popular mod was from Cynogenmod, I went ahead and installed Super Nexus 2.0 Build 4. This particular ROM was the pure Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 with some optimizations. I loved the fact that my phone looked like a true android phone and not as some imposter skinned by the manufacturer. I am testing the unbelievable battery life. The last time I charged was 2.5 days back and I have used a few hours of blutooth, an hour of hangout (video chat), phone calls (even on loudspeaker), Wifi connected browsing. I am left with 50% more which means another 2.5 days of these activities. I am simply blown by this. This actually means my battery life has increased from 1 day to 5 days. Amazing isn’t it. The more I think about that the more it awes me. Btw the person who developed this ROM is less than half my age and goes to school and writes exams. That is a lot of encouragement and inspiration to do more… and enjoy more….

Update: After 4 days and 12 hours, my phone went to below 20% battery and I had to charge it. Will post the screen shots next time.