Five Best Android ROMs

Five Best Android ROMs
Whether you're looking to upgrade an Android device forsaken by its manufacturer or you just want more control over the phone or tablet you own, you've probably gone looking for a new ROM. Rooting your phone is the first step, but a new ROM will give you a completely new mobile OS, and this week we're going to look at five of the best Android ROMs, based on your nominations.
Earlier in the week, we asked you which Android ROMs you thought were the best. We took your nominations, tallied them up, and now we're back to highlight the top five. It's important to note that not every ROM is available for every device, and different ROMs are aimed at different audiences—some of them are designed to upgrade the OS and others are lean and mean installs to speed up your phone. Whichever you choose, you'll have to make sure your device is supported by the developers behind the ROM before installing.
The poll is closed and the votes are counted! To see which of the contenders took the top spot, head over to our weekly Hive Five followup post to see and discuss the winner!

CyanogenMod
CyanogenMod is arguably one of the (if not the) most installed Android ROM in the world, and for good reason. It offers a ton of great features, is available for more devices than most other ROMs of its type, and has the type of polish and support that makes it easy to fall in love with. There are builds of CyanogenMod for Android phones and tablets, and slowly but surely the developers behind CyanogenMod are rolling out Ice Cream Sandwich versions for devices whose manufacturers have given up on upgrading the device entirely. To boot, CyanogenMod includes features you won't find in stock Android, like support for OpenVPN, support for downloadable themes, more privacy tools, and more. You can find a list of supported devices here.


Android Open Kang Project (AOKP)
The Android Open Kang Project (AOKP) is a relative newcomer compared to many of the other popular ROMs already available, but it's rapidly growing in popularity. It offers many of the features that CyanogenMod has, and at first blush you may mistake one for the other, but as soon as you start looking at the options and add-ons, you'll see the differences. AOKP has earned high marks for add-ons and tools that you can't get in CM, centralized control over ROM options, and overall more customization options than CM. At the same time, its development community is smaller and it may not have the same polish and device support that CyanogenMod has. Still, it's super-fast, it's stable, and definitely worth a look. You can find a list of all supported devices here.


MIUI
MIUI struck us with how beautiful the user interface was and how elegant it made Android look and feel. It's not the most feature-packed or hackable ROM, but it's definitely one of the most customizable and elegant, and it's seriously fast. MIUI started life as a modded version of Android localized in China, but fans of the mod have since localized it for dozens of languages and countries. It offers strong theme support, beautiful stock apps, customizable lockscreens, support for GApps, and complete root access. You're not going to get a wealth of niche features here, but you will get a device that's much easier and more fun to use once you install MIUI. You can find a list of supported devices here.


Slim ICS
If you have a Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, Samsung Galaxy S or Galaxy S II, Slim ICS may be the ROM for you. Not only will Slim ICS bring your device up to Ice Cream Sandwich, it's also a super-thin, lightweight installation that's remarkably easy to install, even though it's clearly aimed at advanced users. Slim ICS already has GApps rolled in, so you don't need to install them later. Where other ROMs try to add tons of new features and tweaking options, Slim ICS is designed to trim the fat down to the bare essentials and give you a fast and clean ICS installation. It's only available for a handful of Samsung devices and there's pretty much one developer and a few beta testers behind the scenes, so don't expect a ton of feature additions or new devices, but it is updated weekly and sports a good number of third-party mods.


Liquid Smooth ROMS
Liquid Smooth ROMS are available for multiple devices, and while the project started off with the Motorola Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Droid Incredible, and HTC Thunderbolt, it's also available for the Galaxy Nexus and a few other devices, although you'll have to poke around the forums a bit to find them. The banner feature of Liquid is that it's probably one of the fastest ICS ROMs available, faster even than the stock install that comes on the Galaxy Nexus. You don't sacrifice features for the speed, but the overall size of the ROM is still nice and small, leaving more space for the apps and features you choose to use, as opposed to ones forced on you. GApps are baked right in, and the ROM offers theme support so you can customize it to your liking. All in all, if you have a supported device, it's probably the leanest, meanest ICS ROM you can download.

Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them all to a vote and decide the winner.
What's The Best Android ROM? (Poll Closed)
CyanogenMod  61.07%  (5,350 votes)
 

 
Android Open Kang Project (AOKP) 19.55%  (1,713 votes)
 

 
MIUI  10.41%  (912 votes)
 

 
Slim ICS  5.59%  (490 votes)
 

 
Liquid Smooth ROMs  3.38%  (296 votes)
 

 
 
Total Votes: 8,761
 

No honorable mentions this week, but you all nominated well over 60 different ROMs for consideration, so whatever ROM you settle on, make sure it's a good match for the features you're looking for, the device you own, and the version of Android you want to run. These may be your top five, but they may not be the best for your specific device, so do your homework!
Have something to say about the nominees that we missed? Did your favorite not get enough nominations to be included? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at [e-mail]!