is it worth rooting a phone?

[SamXp]

Autorooted with Kitchen on Win7 last night. Everything went automatically except the last steps, which seem to be a backup. I did a Nandroid backup, flashed Fresh 1.1 and them Gumbo and it seems to work well. No startling change in performance other than perhaps a faster boot and quicker load of app list, but that's probably because I ran the ROM Update Utility to start with a clean sheet to begin with.

 

[neversatisfied]

Autorooted with Kitchen on Win7 last night. Everything went automatically except the last steps, which seem to be a backup. I did a Nandroid backup, flashed Fresh 1.1 and them Gumbo and it seems to work well. No startling change in performance other than perhaps a faster boot and quicker load of app list, but that's probably because I ran the ROM Update Utility to start with a clean sheet to begin with.

Try downloading SetCPU, it cost $1 but there are plenty of others out there who bought it that are willing to share (i will not help you find). And I haven't installed Gumbo Kernal yet but I also heard that saves Battery.

And by speed up the phone I assume you mean less laggy right? Another way to get rid of that is to use Android home instead of Sense UI. Or get rid of the HTC widgets and use Android widgets.

 

[derspiess]

Speaking of Sense UI, I am definitely leaning towards rooting now, but I definitely want to keep Sense UI. With all the rooting/ROM options out there, are there any that will take that away from me?

To put it a different way, can someone recommend a rooting/ROM path that will allow me to:
*Keep Sense UI
*Keep some Sprint apps but delete others
*Improve performance *and* battery life (SetCPU?)
*Allow wifi tethering (not sure if this is just an app that requires rooting or what)
*Keep most other things as they are

I know some of these answers are spread out among the various threads/posts here, but some of it seems vague & other stuff I can't find at all.

TIA

 

[ccapasso]

Speaking of Sense UI, I am definitely leaning towards rooting now, but I definitely want to keep Sense UI. With all the rooting/ROM options out there, are there any that will take that away from me?

To put it a different way, can someone recommend a rooting/ROM path that will allow me to:
*Keep Sense UI
*Keep some Sprint apps but delete others
*Improve performance *and* battery life (SetCPU?)
*Allow wifi tethering (not sure if this is just an app that requires rooting or what)
*Keep most other things as they are

I know some of these answers are spread out among the various threads/posts here, but some of it seems vague & other stuff I can't find at all.

TIA

Fresh + gkr + kitchen

 

[mysticmead]

yep... Fresh 1.1 (removes all Sprint apps) = Gumbo kernel (performance increase) and then use the kitchen again to add the Sprint apps that you want back to the phone.. SenseUI is not touched....

 

[derspiess]

Thanks, guys. Might give it a shot tonight if I can get some 'me' time.

I was waiting for Sprint to release 2.1 to decide whether to root, but I know if I wait for that, it won't be here until June. If they suddenly release it in the next few days, it will be because I rooted

 

[cirehawk]

ok. rooted my phone and added fresh. fricken took me awhile to do it in fact. just trying to figure it out. couldnt use kitchen. so i had to do it manually. installed fresh. now the problem i have is. the radio doesnt work now. any ideas?

Turboed, I decided to take the plunge and root my phone over lunch. I used kitchen, but I had trouble getting it to work initially. Kitchen would fail to connect to my Hero was I selected the root option. The guide lays out both the manual process and automatic process with kitchen. What was not clearly pointed out (at least it wasn't clear to me) was that even if I used kitchen, I still needed to install the HTC Sync software first. Once I did that, kitchen connected to my phone and rooted it. After that, I did the nandroid backup and proceeded to flash the Fresh ROM and Gumbo kernel. I also bought and installed setcpu.

My impressions so far? Initially things seemed even slower, but shortly after I started noticing a speed improvement. Someone elsewhere mentioned that maybe things were still loading even though I was at a usable state. At any rate, it does seem faster and smoother when moving through the home screens as well as when loading apps. Many are stating that it is noticeably faster when changing from portrait to landscape, even when the on-screen keyboard is displayed. However, for me there is still a bit of delay in rotation when the keyboard is visible.

I have a lot more playing to do when I get home, but so far I'd say it was worth doing, especially since it really isn't too hard to do.

 

[cirehawk]

yep... Fresh 1.1 (removes all Sprint apps) = Gumbo kernel (performance increase) and then use the kitchen again to add the Sprint apps that you want back to the phone.. SenseUI is not touched....

Really? I just flashed Fresh 1.1 earlier today and it didn't move ALL of the Sprint apps. I still had NFL Mobile Live and Sprint Navigation, but SprintTV and NASCAR seemed to be removed. That's not a problem for me though, since I would have added those 2 back anyway. I'm just trying to be clear on what is SUPPOSED to happen.

 

[ccapasso]

Really? I just flashed Fresh 1.1 earlier today and it didn't move ALL of the Sprint apps. I still had NFL Mobile Live and Sprint Navigation, but SprintTV and NASCAR seemed to be removed. That's not a problem for me though, since I would have added those 2 back anyway. I'm just trying to be clear on what is SUPPOSED to happen.

What happened for you is correct. Fresh 1.1 does not necessarily uninstall all Sprint apps, but several are indeed removed. You can then use kitchen, as mentioned, to go ahead and remove others and/or add some back in.

 

[derspiess]

I took the plunge & rooted a couple nights ago. Installed gumbo yesterday & was finally able to delete the Nascar app (it was worth doing just for that). I'm noticing some better performance with gumbo & setcpu. I didn't have any big complaints about performance in the first place, but it's always nice to be able to squeeze the most out of what you have.

I really like the recovery mode, wifi tether app, and some of the other little extras you get, and I haven't had any issues with the phone itself. It was helpful to know that I probably couldn't brick the phone without installing some GSM-specific stuff, and that I can always jump back to the official Sprint ROM. All in all, it was definitely worth it.

I did hit a few minor snags along the way, about half of which were my fault in not following instructions closely enough, and the other half of which were due to some vaguely-worded documentation on some other sites.

It's probably not something I could recommend to my brother, wife, or co-worker (all of whom bought Heros in the past few weeks), as I doubt they would notice any of the benefits, but I'd say it's a "must" for anyone who has at least moderate technical skills & wants to get the most out of the Hero.

Thanks to everyone here who shared advice & posted helpful info.