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Do I need/want to root my Android device?

Maine Coon

Maine Coon

Android Expert
There are quite a few threads about rooting.

I thought I would add my experience and thoughts.

- without root, you are at mercy of your hardware manufacturer. Whatever, whenever they feel they can push an upgrade, they will do it.

If you are fine with this and happy with all the features of your Android device, stop right here and go read something else.

There are my reasons to root:

- Samba Filesharing - can see any Android SD card as a drive from any Windows PC;
- Clockworkmod (presuming it is available for your device, check).
With CWM you can make a full Nandroid backup and always go back and restore if something goes wrong;
- Plenty of apps that require root such a AnTuTu CPU Master etc;

- and last, but not least - the wonderful feeling that I control my device:p

Feel free to add your reasons and contradict mine.
 
i like to mess with my toys... do it.. just to do it.
some one else did it.. so I want to do it too.. to see if i can!

but initially.. i wanted to wifi tether.. for my laptop.. when out and about.
 
chanchan05 said:
You can see Android SD card as a drive from any PC without rooting. I do that on my Galaxy SL unrooted.
Click to expand...
care to explain how?
I investigated, and Samba Filesharing seemed to be the only way.

Of course there is WiFi Explorer..but it is ugly.
very unterested to hear how Galaxy can do it.
 
Uh, connect it via USB cable and select mass storage. I can use the phone as a mass storage drive via Windows Explorer just like as if I was using an SD card reader. AFAIK all Androids can do that.
 
Without being physically attached to PC and see and get files from the SD card? Use the same WiFi hotspot and install/use Remote Web Desktop on the phone or a similar program. I'm not rooted anymore too and it still works. :-)
 
removeing bloatware is important to me.
overclocking makes my device run stuff faster.
rooting an android device allows me to do this.
root all the way.
 
The only reasons I've found worth rooting are...
To get rid of Sense, Motoblur, Touchwiz or general bloatware.
To overclock.
 
chanchan05 said:
Without being physically attached to PC and see and get files from the SD card? Use the same WiFi hotspot and install/use Remote Web Desktop on the phone or a similar program. I'm not rooted anymore too and it still works. :-)
Click to expand...
Whatever.
Samba Filesharing is 10 times simpler and it works flawlessly.
 
Maine Coon said:
Whatever.
Samba Filesharing is 10 times simpler and it works flawlessly.
Click to expand...

The question was seeing the SD card on the computer, and I'm just saying it doesn't need root. Heck I still even prefer to just use Sugarsync on my files to Samba. Much easier, just set up and forget and all the files on your SD card are accessible on PC even if the phone is turned off. Not everyone wants to root (I only am not rooted anymore because I'm too lazy to flash as OneClick doesn't work for me anymore).
 
So far, I am very satisfied with my unrooted phone. There isn't really anything that I just really want my device to do that it cannot while unrooted.

As for updates, I haven't really felt I needed an update sooner than the manufacturer/carrier pushed it out. I'm satisfied that I eventually got my Gingerbread update this past summer, but I didn't feel the need to get it any sooner. Most likely, my phone will not see an official ICS update. From what I know, there doesn't seem to be anything in ICS that I cannot live without.
 
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