UK Samsung Galaxy S3 owners have found that Jelly Bean 4.3 was a bit of a mixed blessing. It’s a good OS, but it did deliver some bugs and hassles. They’ll be pleased to know they can get their damp chilly hands on a custom ROM that’ll deliver KitKat 4.4 – if they have the GT-i9300 version.
This ROM comes from the OmniROM developers, and it’s much more stable – except for a non-working camera and poor video playback, that is.
Read on if you want to make this update.
Make sure you have the Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 international model only, as flashing this with other models may cause problems.
Root your phone and install ClockworkMod Touch 6.0.32 or later onto it.
Make a backup of your personal info, settings and data. Make a manual backup instead of using the Samsung Kies PC suite.
Make sure you have at least 50% battery life to avoid power interruption during the flash.
Enable USB debugging mode on your Galaxy S3. Go to ‘Settings > Applications > Development > USB ‘debugging’ or ‘Settings’ > Developer Options > USB ‘debugging.’
Install the right USB drivers on your PC for the Galaxy S3 GT-I9300.
Download the ROM and PA Gapps to your PC.
Flashing Instructions
Connect your Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 to your PC with a USB cable.
Copy the OmniROM 4.4 and PA Gapps files then paste them onto the SD card of your phone without extracting the zip files.
Disconnect the phone then turn it off.
Reboot into recovery mode by pressing and holding the volume up, home and power keys at the same time until you see the Samsung logo onscreen.
You can use touch controls or the hard keys to move around inside the recovery mode.
Do an Android backup of your current ROM. Select ‘backup and restore > backup’ to save the ROM. You can then restore it anytime you want.
Install the firmware and Google apps by choosing ‘install zip from SD card > choose zip from SD card > find the OmniROM 4.4 you pasted earlier > confirm installation.’ Do the same thing with the PA Gapps.
After the installation is finished, head back to the main menu and select ‘wipe data/factory reset.’
Reboot the device by choosing ‘reboot system now.’ Wait five minutes or so for your Galaxy S3 to reach its home screen.
Huzzah! Your Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 is now on the latest Android 4.4 KitKat OS thanks to OmniROM 4.4.
If the device gets trapped in a boot loop, reboot it into recovery mode then do the following:
– ‘wipe data/factory reset’
– ‘wipe cache partition’
– ‘advanced > wipe Dalvik cache’
– ‘install zip from SD card
– ‘reboot system now’
