[Q] Best SIII 4.4 ROM or BTU? - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi All
Long story short, my phone broke and samsung fixed it under warrantee. They returned it with the vodaphone 4.3 flavor OS which was bloated to bursting point with all the crap-ware they add. So naturally the phone was dead slow, which prompted me to flash it to the 4.3 BTU. The phone is quite fast now, but the updates don't work so I'm stuck with those dreaded initial 4.3 software bugs, wifi connectivity & battery drain to name just 2.
I'd like to know if there are any decent & stable 4.4 ROMs available? I have tried CM11 earlier this year, but that didn't work to well, it was quite buggy.
I'd love to be able to install the 4.4.x BTU, but as far as I can tell, it hasn't been released (yet?).
Advice would be great.
Thanks!

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SwiftyZA said:
Hi All
Long story short, my phone broke and samsung fixed it under warrantee. They returned it with the vodaphone 4.3 flavor OS which was bloated to bursting point with all the crap-ware they add. So naturally the phone was dead slow, which prompted me to flash it to the 4.3 BTU. The phone is quite fast now, but the updates don't work so I'm stuck with those dreaded initial 4.3 software bugs, wifi connectivity & battery drain to name just 2.
I'd like to know if there are any decent & stable 4.4 ROMs available? I have tried CM11 earlier this year, but that didn't work to well, it was quite buggy.
I'd love to be able to install the 4.4.x BTU, but as far as I can tell, it hasn't been released (yet?).
Advice would be great.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never expirienced any strange bugs like eith new 4.3 uodates, try using some great custom 4.3 roms out here, like archidroid, neatrom, arhd etc. Just search and try, combine it with a custom kernel and your phone will be reborned.
4.4.x ism't and won't be released for s3, because, well, samsung is $#&*, but you have note2 4.4 ports, like QS kitkat Archiport, and s5 themed like Blekota etc. But these 4.4 ports are having graphical glitches which occur for some, for some not, but as I see, Lord Boeffla updated his Boeffla kernel and in new updates graphical glitches are gone, battery life is much better and wifi direct and screen mirroring are working.
So if you want best stability go with custom 4.3, if you want to test out the kitkat experience which should be good now if combined with Boeffla kernel then go with some 4.4 port.
And don't forget, best rom threads are not allowed and will be closed by moderator, you should try what xda world has to offer and then decide.

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lsalamun said:
I never expirienced any strange bugs like eith new 4.3 uodates, try using some great custom 4.3 roms out here, like archidroid, neatrom, arhd etc. Just search and try, combine it with a custom kernel and your phone will be reborned.
4.4.x ism't and won't be released for s3, because, well, samsung is $#&*, but you have note2 4.4 ports, like QS kitkat Archiport, and s5 themed like Blekota etc. But these 4.4 ports are having graphical glitches which occur for some, for some not, but as I see, Lord Boeffla updated his Boeffla kernel and in new updates graphical glitches are gone, battery life is much better and wifi direct and screen mirroring are working.
So if you want best stability go with custom 4.3, if you want to test out the kitkat experience which should be good now if combined with Boeffla kernel then go with some 4.4 port.
And don't forget, best rom threads are not allowed and will be closed by moderator, you should try what xda world has to offer and then decide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I load a custom kernel? I've only ever flashed with Odin and then that was just the ROM.
Just as a matter of interest, 4.4 has been released for the S3 on certain carriers.

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Flash the kernel through your custom recovery.
Only the versions of the s3 which have 2gb of ram have kitkat..other versions do not including the international version
Sent from a "Galaxy" far, far away with my Ultra Ray Gun

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SwiftyZA said:
How do I load a custom kernel? I've only ever flashed with Odin and then that was just the ROM.
Just as a matter of interest, 4.4 has been released for the S3 on certain carriers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just as Pulseuser mentioned, 4.4 is released only for i9305 LTE variant of s3.
About custom kernel, the easiest method is to root your phone using cf-autoroot, just google cf auto root and download the .tar.md5 for Odin for i9300 S3. Then when your phone is rooted download ROM Manager from playstore and install Clockwork Mod recovery, then reboot to the recovery via rom manager app and choose install zip from sdcard, fin your custom kernel/rom or whatever you want to flash and then tap yes and reboot, but first copy your custom kernel/rom on sdcard.
It is very easy, you even have tutorials on youtube on how to flash something via CWM recovery.