LG G3 (LS990) Phone Root – OctOS
As mentioned previously, I decided to use OctOS as my first venture into a non-stock operating system for my rooted LG G3. Based on CyanogenMod 12 code and Android Lollipop 5.1.1, OctOS is Android Open Source Project (AOSP) with a similar base architecture to many of the ROMs/OSs out there. It manages a lot of the user experience in a program called Tentacles.
Tentacles allows you to adjust a lot of the “feel” (themes, buttons, power menu, etc.) in one convenient location. I did try a dark theme (OctOS Ink Dark). However, some of the notification boxes were difficult to read, so I reverted back to the default settings, which I still found appealing. Most of my tweaks came in removing some of the default applications, specifically the browser and messaging applications, which I replaced with Chrome and Hangouts, respectively. If you are a Google user, I can’t recommend Hangouts enough as your default messaging service – keeping SMS and gChats in one.
I also needed to replace the camera. While I’ve heard a lot of good things about Google Camera, one of my biggest pet peeves is that you cannot have it save to an external SD card. So instead of Google Camera, I installed A Better Camera. This gave me additional control over my camera, but I can’t say that it fully utilizes the capabilities of the LG G3 camera like stock.
Some additional applications I installed were:
- CatLog (for tracking system errors)
- Device Control (for additional influence over my phone)
- Greenify (to help keep battery sucking applications in check)
- Titanium Backup Pro (to backup applications and data)
The battery life seems about average. Waking up with a full charge around 5:00 AM with occasional LTE use, I’m usually down to about 30% battery by the time I get home at 4:30 PM (almost 12 hours). In my opinion, that’s pretty decent given the screen size of the LG G3, although I’d prefer the remaining battery be somewhere more in the 50-60% range.
