Questions and problems and rooting

[tukatz]

When we see questions about how to do something they are frequently from new folks who are running stock configurations.

I have noticed that when we see threads from folks who are having problems they are frequently from folks who have rooted their device.

That leads me to believe that leaving well enough alone is probably not a bad idea. I'm sure that some folks who root their device have a very good reason for doing so, but I'll stick to a stock configuration and continue to enjoy a device that just keeps working.

Best of luck to those of you who choose to jump in the deep end.

 

[Rukbat]

When we see threads from folks who are having problems and have rooted their device, they are frequently from folks who have rooted their device by downloading a rooting program and running it. We see very few posts from people who have downloaded an exploit file, pushed it to the phone with adb, and pushed su and busybox to the phone.

I've noticed the same effect when people who know nothing about cars work on their car engines, when people who know nothing about plumbing fix the plumbing in their houses ...

Notice any common theme here?

I was in the cellphone business for years, have an EE degree, have been in the telecommunications industry longer than most posters here have been alive ... and I have no reason to root my phone yet. If I do, I know I can root it easily. (I did, to see if it would work - the AT&T Note 3 is a tough beast to do anything with.) Then I unrooted it.

Some people want to root their phones because they want ... well, to have rooted phones. Not realizing that it totally voids the warranty in the US. (Some European countries don't allow that kind of exclusion in warranties.) Some people want to flash custom ROMs - for the same reason, to have a ROM.

Those are the people we see "help me" posts from. People who just want CWM or TWRP to be able to make a nandroid backup probably know what they're doing, and don't brick their phones. (And even a hard-bricked phone can be fixed. Has anyone ever seen the search bar in Youtube? "Hard brick"?)

But your decision is the right one for you. If you have no need for root, why void your warranty?

 

[unnamedny]

Rooting does nothing bad to your device. When you start messing with Roms and MODs is when you get many issues. Rooting nexus 7 was extremely easy. Getting it back to complete stock is also no hassle. Some people just love to experiment, it goes away for most people.

 

[ewitte12]

Rooting does introduce a few more complexities into the mix. You have a tablet that isn't as Google tested it for patches, etc. As long as your not changing roms, etc your probably not going to have any issues. The only reason I did it for previous tablets were either it wouldn't let me do something (Apple) or it wasn't up to date (should not have this issue with a Nexus). Both of those things in my past experiences not nearly as stable as stock. So generally if you can do what you want and its up to date IMO there really isn't a reason to root a device. My fix for apple was to migrate more devices to Android lol.