CyanogenMod VS Paranoid Android

There exists a lot of mods and customization for Android that makes it a perfect stop for people who love to tweak their phone. Most of the people who tweak their phone and install custom ROMs are familiar with CyanogenMod. It is the most popular ROM for Android devices. But CyanogenMod is not the only ROM that can be used to upgrade your Android device to the latest versions.

There exists this mod called Paranoid Android which gives the common user a choice when they have to upgrade their Android versions in their phone. Paranoid Android is a popular ROM and is a favorite for many users who have tried CyanogenMod over the years. If you are looking for something new, something fresh and something with unique features, then you ought to try Paranoid Android for your phone. But if you want to upgrade your phone to the latest stock like Android without any unique bundled features then you can stick with CyanogenMod.

It is true that Paranoid Android was originally based on CyanogenMod but now it has moved apart from it. Paranoid Android is now based upon Android Open Source Project (AOSP) ROMs, which are basically ROMs built from stock Android or original Android source codes.

Notable and Unique Features of Paranoid Android

It has some unique features such as Halo which looks like a Facebook style chat heads on your home screen. But Halo is not limited to Facebook chat notification and it supports notifications of all apps. You can have email notifications, WhatsApp chat notifications and every other notifications configured to be received from Halo.

You can customize or change the user interface (UI) of your phone. You will be able to change your phone’s interface to tablet, phablet or phone like UI. That means your apps, home screen, buttons and notifications will be placed and behave just like the user interface mode that you switched to. For example: Gmail’s tablet layout can be brought up in your phone if you set the UI as tablet.

Pie Navigation Layout, which adds a pie like navigation with home, back buttons and clock. Those can be placed anywhere on the screen and will be brought up by a certain click and drag gesture on that area of the screen.

Notable and Unique Features of CyanogenMod

A large list of devices are supported. Currently 185 devices are listed as supported in Wikipedia. The list includes devices released by different carriers with different network supports such as GSM or CDMA. The list of supported devices keep expanding.

Professional development approach which includes releasing nightly releases and bug fixing introduced in the next nightly release. Stable releases are done when the team feels that the version that they release will be good enough for a certain period.

Cyanogenmod also supports Pie Navigation Layout, which is quite cool if you think about it. Despite adding a few feature upgrades and improvements, this mod tries to stick to the original Android experience. Users get the latest stock Android like experience on their phone with this mod.

CyanogenMod and Paranoid Android Compared

Paranoid Android has more unique features while CyanogenMod tries to stick close to the stock Android version. Paranoid Android has unique features such as Halo. CyanogenMod, on the other hand, gives user the latest Android version experience with some improvements of their own to the stock Android.

CyanogenMod team is more professional when they release their ROMs. They have a website which is well maintained and updated with the latest happenings. They also have a very active Google Plus page. Paranoid Android on the other hand has a Google Plus page and does not have a website where you go to download their ROMs. You will have to do a bit of searching to reach a secure and reliable place to download Paranoid Android ROMs.

CyanogenMod supports more devices and new devices are added to the list on a timely manner. Paranoid Android seems to support less devices and their selection depends upon the popularity of the device. But this does not limit us as unofficial Paranoid Android builds and mods are there to support your device, if it is not supported officially.

Conclusion

Both mods can be said as equally good and depends upon the choice and device of the user. Paranoid Android has unique features which a lot of users enjoy. CyanogenMod just wants to provide you with the latest Android. Both mods are equally stable with performances that are comparable.

Paranoid Android with its great deal of unique features does have an edge because when someone installs custom ROMs they want custom features added to their device.