I bought my Fascinate almost the day it came out. It was my first Android and Verizon phone, and I was pretty happy just to have service in my house outside a small town’s city limit. The more I read and found out about Android though, the more I heard the outcries over updated OS’s, Binged searched engines, and manufacturer UIs. So, like many of you, I took the next step to make my phone better and learned to root my Samsung Fascinate. That was about the extent of what anyone expected out of a phone with great specs, but devilish conspiracies behind it. Five months later we received a leaked version of Froyo, a month or so after that was the official release, and with it the quiet, ever-present cosmic background noise of Gingerbread. Being an old-school Fascinate user, I never trusted Samsung or Verizon to ever give us this update, and, almost pointless to say, they haven’t. However, a favorite developer of us Fascinate users, JT1134, has worked on a new release for CyanogenMOD 7.

While not official CM7 yet, it is pretty stable, with only GPS, MMS, and light and proximity sensors the missing features. I have tested it out for a few days, and it runs beautifully. There are, of course, the few bugs here and there, but a lot of people on XDA and in IRC are using this build as a daily driver*. It has even spawned an MIUI build. The Fascinate and JT1134 have seen a few other AOSP builds along with CM6 and a different CM7, but this version takes the cake and should be headed for an official CM7 nightly release. This is exciting news for any Fascinate user. If the build does get picked up by Cyanogenmod for nightly status, it could breath new and continued life into a pretty much abandoned and forgotten phone.
*Be warned beforehand, there is not an easy way to get back to any other Rom. If you switch and try this CM7 build, you WILL have to use Odin to get back to stock Eclair and work your way back  to Froyo.

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About the Author

Ben Crawford

Ben Crawford, is a philosophy graduate, living in Indianapolis (hating the Colts, but loving Notre Dame and the Pacers), still trying to philosophize his way into the world. Whether spending his time writing, reading, playing games, or debating typing vs fountain pen writing, one thing is for sure, he knows how to brick a PSP, PS3, Dell, and phone. Do we call things bigger than a brick, a brick? Follow Ben on twitter: @tennisben24

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