Those of you that own the Google Nexus 6, Google Nexus 7, OnePlus One, OnePlus 2, Sony Xperia V, Sony Xperia TX, Sony Xperia T, Sony Xperia XP or the Moto G 2015 will be happy to know that these devices all have official CyanogenMod 14.1 nightlies available, as of today. CyanogenMod 14.1 is based off of Android 7.1, which is currently the latest version of Android. Many of these devices are no longer getting official updates from their manufacturer, so it’s definitely nice to see that the folks at CyanogenMod are keeping them up-to-date with the latest version of Android and the latest security updates.
CyanogenMod has become a pretty popular custom ROM because many smartphone manufacturers stop updating their devices after about a year or so. Which means that if users want to keep their devices for two years (the length of most carrier contracts) and want to have software that is not outdated, they’ll need to root their smartphones and slap a custom ROM on board. CyanogenMod has become a popular option out of the many others available, partly due to the number of devices they support. The other reason is the fact that it is mostly AOSP. So those that buy something from Sony, Samsung, HTC, or LG can slap on CyanogenMod and get a more “stock Android” experience, compared to the custom UI’s that these manufacturers have on their devices.
For those that are unfamiliar with CyanogenMod, but are interested in checking it out, you’ll need to first root your device. It’s only recommended to do so if you are no longer under warranty. As rooting your smartphone will void that warranty. Then you’ll just need to grab the nightly for your device and download it, also grab the latest version of Gapps – otherwise you won’t have Google apps once you flash CyanogenMod onto your device. Then you’ll just need to flash it through a custom recovery like TWRP. It’s actually fairly easy to do. If you have any of the devices listed above, you can get your download on from the link below. Remember that nightlies are not that stable, they are pretty buggy, and there are new releases coming out just about every day to fix some of these bugs and make it a bit more stable.
Download CyanogenMod 14.1