[Galaxy Ace S5830 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tommycr7:
My Samsung Galaxy ACE S5830 needs the kiss of life, so as to return to the 21st century.

It has slow responses and quite often freezes and messes up with my nerves.

It currently runs on a 2.3.5 android version.

I want to root it, take a backup, increase ram by creating a partition in my new sd card and install a light custom rom (like MIUI). For this purpose, I just bought a very fast Kingston 32GB, class 10 U3, sd card with theoretical 90MBs read and 80MBs write speed. I think that will suffice.

I am a simple user and I need basic functions. My main issue is to get a faster response from the phone. I don’t play games and I am not a major fun of social media. I just want to want to use it mainly as a phone, for calls, messages, Viber, and some extra facilities like emailing, web browsing, watching some videos online (news and youtube), occasional photos, listen to music, and install a GPS program like Sygic.

I’ve already read a lot about the whole process, but as I’m doing it for the first time in my life I want to make sure that I got it right. And I have a few ambiguities.

Please advise or freely suggest if any better/easier method is available.

1. Rooting.

I decided to use Kingo Root. So, I need to download Kingo Root to my pc and connect the phone (having enabled USB debugging) and just press Root. Then check if rooting is successful with Root Checker. Then download and install SuperSU app. And I’m done.

Do I need to unlock my bootloader, too?

2. Backup.

a) Take an image of the existing ROM.

Download and install ROM Manager, flash ClockworkMod Recovery and update. Boot in to recovery by using ROM Manager or manually by pressing simultaneously UP+POWER+HOME buttons. Then go to Backup and Restore and take a backup image. Right?

b) Backup apps and messages.

I want to take just 2 backups here, my text messages and my Viber messages. Do I use Titanium or something else? My contacts are already synchronized with Google. If I use a MIUI stock rom do I need to take a backup of my contacts too?

3. Increase phone's RAM

I think now is the right time to increase the phone’s RAM. Do I need to partition it with CWM? Or I just use an app like Ram Expander? Do I do both? I mean firstly partition the sd to the desired size and then use Ram Expander? None of the above? What do you suggest? I have read some other possible solutions like using INT2EXT+ after partition. And when I download a new app how will the phone know where to store it, in phone’s RAM or in sd card?

The key factor is speed and efficiency.

I’ve also read that “Even though the Internal Storage would read 2GB (or whatever is your partition size), the apps would still use some amount of REAL INTERNAL Storage for data, hence you need at least 100MB REAL Internal Memory for every 500MB SD-EXT memory.” Is this true? And if so, since I believe the Galaxy ACE S5830 has about 150 MB RAM the most I can actually get is 750 MB RAM?

It is important to get as much RAM as possible because I’ve read that Sygic (the GPS Navigator app) needs to be installed in phone’s RAM to work properly and it is about 700MB.

4. Install Stock ROM

Finally, the time has come to install a new stock rom. I am thinking about MIUI 6. I like its interface and I’ve heard it is light and fast. Any better suggestions? Can I do it in my phone?

My problem here is this, is MIUI a fully functional stock rom, which means I just download it and flash it or is it a “port rom” which means I have to previously install some android 4.4.x base rom? I have read in some article that is needs a compatible android rom to lean on before installing. Is that so?

Here I am stuck, I can’t decide how to proceed and I need your help.

Sorry, if the post is too long.