Why I Love Rooting (A Case for Rooting Your Phone)

I’m a relatively new Android user, having gotten my HTC EVO 4G in early September of last year. However, before switching to Android from the iPhone (and let me say, thank GAWD I did), I did tons of research on the benefits on Android, and one thing that kept coming up was rooting. Rooting, if you’re unaware, basically gives you superuser access to your phone, removing certain protections put upon your phone by carriers or manufacturers. Some phones are easier to root than others, and I was pleased to see that the EVO could be rooted fairly easily (thanks to the wonderful folks on the Unrevoked team).

At first, I was nervous about rooting. I had gone through the process of jailbreaking my iPhone a while back, and it caused all sorts of problems, so I didn’t want that happening again. Therefore, I got to reading. If you have any interest at all in rooting, you have to read. I dove into forum threads, websites like XDA-Developers and so on, and once I got comfortable enough (don’t even think of rooting if you’re not comfortable), I decided to take the plunge. Thankfully, at least for my phone, the rooting process went off without a hitch. That’s when the REAL fun of customizing Android began.

If you’re wondering why you should root, there are many compelling reasons for it. You can do full backups (called NAND backups) of your current ROM, should anything happen while removing carrier-based bloatware (yes, you can remove bloatware once rooted) flashing a ROM or kernel. Speaking of which, flashing ROM’s can give you an entirely new user experience. There are ROM’s based on manufacturer’s modified versions of Android like Sense or MotoBlur, as well as ROM’s based solely on the Android Open Source Project (or AOSP). For example, my phone is currently running Cyanogen, based on AOSP, because I wasn’t fond of HTC’s Sense. You can also flash kernels which will hopefully improve your battery life.

You can also overclock and underclock your CPU, for either more speed or more battery life, respectfully. You can also enable free WiFi and USB tethering, which many carriers charge money for. This, plus new boot loading screens, more access to a phone’s internal file system and so on are all big pluses in the case for rooting one’s phone.

There are downsides to rooting, however, though they seem more and more minimal as the community gets more familiar with the inner workings of Android. I’ve read of people bricking (rendering the phone unusable) their phones, which is a worst-case scenario and really quite rare. I’ve also read that some phones are harder to root than others, such as those from Motorola. While various workarounds for these issues have been employed, their riskiness can put some off.

So should you root your phone? That is entirely up to you. Do you want a phone that you happen to use yet is owned by your carrier and manufacturer…or do you want a phone you fully own that happens to run on your carrier? It’s a compelling argument, but one you should think and read carefully on. If you do decide to dive into rooting, I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you’re successful in getting the most of out your Android device.