The very title of this post might make you look twice. Downgrade your version of Android? Why on earth would you want to do that? After all, isn’t Android about cutting edge technology, the newest and best, customizability and all that? What good does it do you to downgrade back to a previous version? Well, there are, of course, a couple of reasons. The very things that are given as Android’s greatest strengths also have a tendency to be its greatest weaknesses, and sometimes going ahead too far, too fast can be bad for your device, requiring a step backwards. Before you decide to downgrade, take a moment to consider why it might be necessary.

Android is constantly adding new features to each release of the operating system. While these features keep Android competitive, they also require more strain on the hardware. There is no real uniformity of specifications for Android devices. The variations of processor strength, onboard memory, RAM and even apps pre-installed by the carriers are wide. A version of Android that works great on one device might not work so great on another, almost solely because of hardware limitations. If you own an older Android device, the version of the software it shipped with was probably the best version of Android at the time, and the device designed to run with that version.

That’s not to say Android devices are designed to not be upgradable, but it does mean that the longer you own your device, the less likely it will be to handle larger, more complicated versions of the Android OS. Android phones two years old currently are not very well equipped to handle the current version of Android, 2.3 Gingerbread, and will likely not be able to handle Android ice Cream Sandwich at all.

You might decide to downgrade if, after installing the most recent version of Android, your device suddenly becomes slow, unstable or otherwise buggy. You might discover that some of your favorite apps do not have current versions designed to work with the newest OS, or don’t work as well as they once did, making your phone lose functionality. In some cases, if your phone is having problems with a version it should be able to run, downgrading to an older Android version takes the strain off of the processor.

Downgrading is about as complicated as rooting, or installing a new ROM on a device, that is to say not too bad, but perhaps not for the beginner. There are many ways to do it, but one of the more simpler methods can be found at Techatlast.com.

As with any decision regarding your technology, research, research, research the compatibility of your device with any procedure you would like to do to it, whether it is rooting, upgrading or downgrading. Waiting until someone else has done it first and posted on a forum somewhere about the experience can save you a lot of hassle and the need to downgrade at all.

{ 0 comments }