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Convince me to root

S

slanch

Newbie
I've had my Nexus since February and i've been loving it. I didn't root the phone when i first got it and i'm wondering if i should now or if it isn't worth it.

So, what advantages am i getting from rooting, what things am i missing out on?
 
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slanch said:
I've had my Nexus since February and i've been loving it. I didn't root the phone when i first got it and i'm wondering if i should now or if it isn't worth it.

So, what advantages am i getting from rooting, what things am i missing out on?
Click to expand...


I usually wait to root a phone until a specific IMPORTANT reason. Like low space issue with Incredible

Ill wait a while to root this. JB will be here soon enough.
 
root your phone or I will kill you and your entire family... and possibly your neighbor if they see me loading the bodies in the back of my windowless van. And then i'm going to sell them to a glue factory.

Or if you want a more practical reason, rooting gives you the freedom to completely (and yes I do mean completely depending on which ROM you choose) customize every aspect of your phones performance and user interface, make backups which is very handy for saving your phones settings/layout/contacts/messages etc. You can overclock and play around with how your phone runs, sleep easy with satisfaction of knowing you have root access to your phone. Either way. I'd root it though, seriously.
 
rooting enables you to install ad blockers on your phone which also speed up your browsing experiences as well as removing the clutter from any free apps you may have
 
You might be better off asking what disadvantages there are to rooting your GN. I'm a proponent of rooting, but only if you've researched your booty off and know what you're doing :D
 
This phone is so rooting friendly, you might as well at least try. Almost impossible to truly brick and you can always go back to bone stock if you don't like it.
 
While I agree, with the release of JellyBean, that is a huge reason to root/unlock your phone, There are quite a few others. Back ups (apps, data, and whole phone images, "Nandroids"), Tethering apps, kernals (for better battery life and performance), mods (customization beyond what android allows already (like getting rid of google search bar, changing battery reporting graphics, etc.).
 
I hope this doesn't come across as disrespectful, but why should we have to convince you of anything? Doesn't that seem like more than a little entitlement? There are hundreds of threads in the root forums extolling the benefits of various applications, the potential pitfalls of rooting, and the considerations before doing so.

We're all just users here, not salesmen, and there's a huge amount of information available to those who want it. Rather than demanding that we convince you, I'd highly recommend regularly browsing the root forum for your device for a week or two and absorbing some of the information there. That will prevent you from making a lot of the common mistakes, and will give you a lot more basis for your decision than the few people who will respond to this thread.
 
blahblahyoutoo said:
how does the adblocking work? is it an app or does it just modify a host file?
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It's an app that modifies the hosts file.

Public Service Announcement: Please do not block ads on your favorite, free, ad-supported websites. You are getting a free service, and the people running the service are getting paid by serving up advertisements. It costs money to run these sites, as well as a lot of time and effort.
 
ive considered rooting several times but i have never gone through with it. would be great to get rid of ads and stuff i dont want. but with so many different rooting options and somethings not working all that well, i have held off on it so far.
 
I guess I'll be the one to say it: I've never had a reason to root my GNex. If it fixed the mic mute issue I would, but that's more of a tower/regional problem. I rooted my Droid Eris because it did make the phone MUCH faster. The GNex is already fast enough for me and doesn't have much bloatware (1 or 2 apps I disabled). I'm in IT and I like tinkering with things, but I don't need Jellybean right now and that would be the only reason I guess, but it's not gong to change my phone that much. Speed, battery life work fine for me.

All the other reasons listed in this thread don't give me any solid reasons to root what I believe is already a good device.

Steve
 
steveFTC said:
I guess I'll be the one to say it: I've never had a reason to root my GNex. If it fixed the mic mute issue I would, but that's more of a tower/regional problem. I rooted my Droid Eris because it did make the phone MUCH faster. The GNex is already fast enough for me and doesn't have much bloatware (1 or 2 apps I disabled). I'm in IT and I like tinkering with things, but I don't need Jellybean right now and that would be the only reason I guess, but it's not gong to change my phone that much. Speed, battery life work fine for me.

All the other reasons listed in this thread don't give me any solid reasons to root what I believe is already a good device.

Steve
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i'm in the same boat.
i'm a pretty technical person. i've been building my own pc's since i was 14, sys admin by trade, "rooted" my home router to configure QoS (ddwrt/tomato), jailbroken my gen1 itouch so that it could load apps, etc.

but I haven't found a need to root the gnex.
the one thing that has made me come close to doing it is for OTG usb drive support and maybe ad blocking. but neither of those are big enough issues/wants to make me want to root.
 
blahblahyoutoo said:
but neither of those are big enough issues/wants to make me want to root.
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I'm a customization freak, and not being able to screw around with colors/icons/buttons/kernels/roms etc. I just wouldn't be able to take myself seriously as a smartphone owner without it. Its like customizing your car... sure it works fine right from the factory, but you want it to have your own personal style and be the way YOU want it... not the way the manufacturer gives it to you.

That alone, along with the many other perks of rooting is why I am rooted.
 
Idunno said:
I'm a customization freak, and not being able to screw around with colors/icons/buttons/kernels/roms etc. I just wouldn't be able to take myself seriously as a smartphone owner without it. Its like customizing your car... sure it works fine right from the factory, but you want it to have your own personal style and be the way YOU want it... not the way the manufacturer gives it to you.

That alone, along with the many other perks of rooting is why I am rooted.
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I like customizations as well, but I guess I'm more concerned with technical capabilities rather than aesthetics and/or operational preferences.
 
What do you mean by technical capabilities? Because the phones hardware is what it is and that's never going to change, the only thing you can change is firmware... and you need root to do that. Some apps and launchers let you do a little bit but nothing like what you can with a custom ROM.
 
Customization and added functionality aside.... rooting, flashing new roms/mods/etc., if nothing else, is just plain fun! I had never rooted a device before the G-Nexus. I first rooted in February maybe, and have since bought a Transformer Prime - rooted it first thing when i got it home; a Kindle Fire - just because i found one cheap and wanted to root it and throw some AOKP love at it; busted out my OG Droid and rooted it - for no reason other then i wanted to tinker; and now i cannot wait until my wife gets a new phone so i can root her current Thunderbolt - she refuses to fuel my obsession by letting me touch her phone!

So, with all that said... i root my G-Nexus for customization and functionality, but all of the other stuff is just as a hobby. So that could be another reason to do it. Whatever you do, enjoy your phone!
 
Idunno said:
What do you mean by technical capabilities? Because the phones hardware is what it is and that's never going to change, the only thing you can change is firmware... and you need root to do that. Some apps and launchers let you do a little bit but nothing like what you can with a custom ROM.
Click to expand...

reading a usb flash drive would require me to root (along with getting an OTG adapter, and stickmount app).
i guess you could technically say that the capability was there all along, but needed a root to unlock it.
 
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