ROM Manager allows you to manage your ROMs via a handy UI. Organize and perform backups and restores from within Android! Install your favorite ROMs over the air! The application is for Android phones that are already rooted, or for those who want to root. Unlike DroidMod, the ROM Manager applications supports almost all the existing alternate ROM families in one great application. Additionally, it supports the new Clockwork Mod backup and recovery method, as opposed to the SPRecovery method (nandroid) which was previously the accepted method of doing this task. SPRecovery and nandroid are still there, but they’re depricated and used mainly to restore old backups. My impression is that the Clockwork Mod backup is much more complete and more likely to give you an exact restore and it’s starting to be accepted as the default backup method. And it is significantly easier to do a backup with it. In fact, not only painless, but brain dead as well. No thought needed there. Just choose and it is done. Nice!
The ROM Manager comes in two versions: a free and a Premium version. The free version will do the backups and can also see and use any ROM images that you have manually loaded to the SDCard. The Premium version of ROM Manager has the full list of ROM Downloads available and full OTA update support, direct to your device. This is for all ROM images, as well as kernels, and a variety of programs and facilities for root users. To my mind, it is well worth the $4 cost. As you can see from the two screenshots above, the functionality is quite impressive. I had a couple of apps that were not operating as I expected they should (after a LOT of hacking around in the \sys and \system\apps of the root) and all that was completely and painlessly resolved with the “Fix Permissions” option shown on screen 2 above.
What I found most impressive was the fact that ROM Manager supports all the major players in ROM authors, and this list is growing every day. I am currently running Bugless Beast v0.9, but I was able to use ROM Manager to immediately upgrade the Baseband to 0.3, which is what was released with the official Verizon 2.1 ROM (ESE 81). If you are running an alternative ROM on any Android device, ROM Manager is by far the easiest way to upgrade to the latest ROM in the family of your choice or even jump between ROM families, if you want to do so. It makes sure that everything is backed up, even if you need to wipe memory and caches as part of the process. I would still use Titanium Backup to make sure you have your apps and app data saved, as you can do bulk restores, or just choose what is missing, so don’t forget that.
You can download ROM Manager from the Market. As always, You take full responsibility for anything you load to your device that is outside of an official update. Make sure you do your homework and especially make sure you have a back-out plan, just in case.
I was really excited with DroidMod, but frankly, they have not done anything in several weeks and time marches on. I am very happy with Pete’s Bugless Beast ROM’s and it is even easier now that I don’t have to do everything by hand, but rather I can just choose a ROM update and sit back and watch it happen. Life is good with ROM Manager. Enjoy!