What is Firmware, Rom and Firmware Flashing ?

In android world it is possible that (i am sure) many time you heard about firmwares, roms and flashing.

These strange words really annoys newbies , So i created a simple article on it. I hope this will help you to understand what is firmwares, roms and flashing process

What is Firmware ?

This is very comman question popups in mind that what the heck is this firmware. Defination of firmware is

Permanent software programmed into a read-only memory

In Simple words you can understand it like windows for pc , in case of android we are going to do same thing – installing firmware (Froyo,Gingerbread etc.) on your phone. All phones have their different firmwares and installing tools regard less to the Andriod version (Froyo,Gingerbred). So never think that we can install any firmware on any android phone like we do in PCs.

What is Flashing ?

Flashing stands for installing a firmware in ROM , in simple words flashing is called installing firmware on your phone.

What is ROM ?

This is also very interesting question to answer – ROM is the memory where firmware installs . It cannot be seen by connecting your phone to pc via usb cable either Browsing  in phone . You can see peoples are talking about ROMs  like

This is Gingerbread ROM or froyo ROM or miui ROM or blah blah ROM

Actually they are talking about firmware that is going to be installed on ROM .

How to install Firmware ?

Firmware installing is very simple like installing windows on pc , but in case of android we need to run a small software on pc and need to select which firmware to flash and that’s it, these small software and firmwares are different for every phone .

There are two methods of installing firmwares

1. Via  Phone Updating Software : While you update your phone , it is also a firmware installing – but you dont have any control on it , you can use this only when company launches firmware updates.
2. Manual installing method :  This is a little risky method and used by developers , using this method you have full control on installing firmwares. you can install any firmware you want[Source]

Posted in: Android Guide, TUTORIAL