I know most people are gonna tell me I should root my phone, but just hear me out really quickly...
I just got my Samsung Vibrant and I truly love the phone. It's a huge upgrade from my G1 in pretty much every way I can think of. I had my G1 rooted since like the second week I had it. I started off with JesusFreke's ROMs and then made my way to Cyanogen's ROMs with a few others that I tried here and there. I tried a bunch of different themes and I used quite a few root apps. I know my way around the rooted Android scene (or at least the rooted G1 scene) pretty well, but I'm not entirely sure if I want to root my Vibrant and here's why:
I'm afraid of voiding my warranty.
There's not really anything that I want to do with the phone that it can't already do (for example, it has plenty of space for apps without the need for A2SD).
I don't want to risk losing things like my text messages over and over again from switching to different ROMs (this happened to me quite a bit with my G1).
My G1's battery and overall performance were much much worse than my friends' G1s which were not rooted. I don't want this happening with my Vibrant.
Some people will think that these reasons are either unimportant or nonexistent, but I disagree. Again, before people start saying "these are the risks of rooting, deal with it or leave," I want to stress that I'm not a newbie at this.
Anyway, the main reason that I DO want to root the phone, regardless of the fact that I told myself I wouldn't, is because of all this junkware that T-Mobile preinstalled the phone. I didn't know the phone came with this crap (like GoGo, TeleNav GPS, Slacker, etc.). We all know that you can't remove this stuff without rooting...I've counted 11 apps that I want to remove from the phone because they're effectively advertisements and I don't want them. So before I make a decision, I'd like to ask some questions...
Would you root the phone if you were ME?
Is it possible to root the Vibrant, remove the apps, and then unroot it, thus leaving the apps gone?
If not ^^, then is it possible to root the Vibrant and keep the stock ROM? I really don't want any custom ROMs...I just want to remove the junkware.
I'm sorry if similar questions have been asked before, but I feel like my specific needs and concerns probably aren't shared by most of the XDA community so I created my own post...
Thanks,
Gerard
actually I think what most are going to say is search the forum... There are several threads on the topic.
You don't have to add any roms if you're rooted. Yes you can remove the bloatware with root. Yes its easy to take your phone out of root, but with the bloatware missing its not hard to see that you have had root at one point.
I actually did root my phone just to remove the junkware....and then used titanium backup to remove what I didn't want....it took me 3 mins to root compared to the 15 mins it took for my nexus....i say its worth it....you can't even tell its rooted so I'm pretty sure the warehouse will never catch it if a exchange is ever needed.....you ll personally make up ur mind as soon as u see the cyanogen 2.2 rom come out hopefully that will be soon....I SAY GO FOR IT
Sent from my Samsung™ Vibrant using XDA App
I'm not bothering to root while I can still return the phone (1st 30 days) and not all the HW issues are know. Once a decent custom ROM is available I'll start looking into rooting, customer recovery, etc. The only thing I'm missing a bit from not being rooted is my Wifi tethering...
Thanks for the replies, guys (and/or girl(s) it looks like lol). I'm glad I wasn't destroyed by people telling me to search the forums...
I'll probably end up doing root sooner or later with very few modifications (if any). I'll wait it out a bit, though. My questions have been answered.
Thanks again!
Gerard
Samsung is a new device. Running 4.4.2 KikKat and having the best mobile processor in the market meaning that most (if not all) of you will exploit this bad boy in many different ways. The most popular way is obviously gonna be rooting.
Now, im fairly new to rooting. (Having only rooted my v2.1 Galaxy S Vibrant) Meaning I have no idea (or experience for that matter) in rooting new phones.
Most of you know that Sammy implanted new Knox security, and rooting an S5 early on will void it's warranty.
My question is: Is it recommended to root an S5? Aside from the cancelation of the warranty will the phone suffer any other consequences? And lastly, are there any actual mods that will make rooting an S5 beneficial? Or are all the mods just aesthetical?
Difficult question to answer imho. I'm no leet phone user or maybe not the best person to ask, but I rooted because of droidwall, xposed network and xprivacy (basically because I want a access to iptables and decide which items can use which data, etc. I also like to customise and freeze unwanted stuff in titanium backup. But if the positive side supersedes the negative side I don't know. Must be up to you to decide. If you are into to protect your own privacy policy root is must. Cheers
Sent from my SM-G900F using xda app-developers app
Im also not leet phone user or anything but to answer your question about if there is any useful mods...
well firstly if you're rooted you can remove all of the bloatware... this will typically extends your phone battery by 15 - 40% depending on how you use it... but for sure its 15% better (samsung is known for putting a lot of bloatware and some of them runs in the background and you cant turn them off -> the only way is to freeze or delete them)... secondly is that if you have some specific things you want on your phone, rooting and flashing mods/roms will help you achieve them, for example: I like to have my "sound+vibration/vibration" options on the notification but stockrom has "sound/vibration/mute", and so far that I've noticed the "sound" option doesn't force vibration so if you just restarted the phone and put on the "sound" option it won't vibrate until you go to settings and set it to do so... so without rooting I won't ever be able to mod the notification toggles to do what I want.... there will also be mods that makes your phone more responsive (faster)... the lists of things you can do with root is just too much to be listed lol...
now to answer your main question "Is rooting the S5 recommended this early on?", now this is all my opinion so take it with a bit of salt... I would say no...
there isn't much of roms around (not much of choices atm, you can check like s2/s3/s4 to get an idea of how much of choices you can expect once the device has been out for 6 months+), so if you root right now, you pretty much have to do all of the modding by yourself and etc... so why root and lose warranty? just play it cool and wait for a better time XD the decision that you wait 1 - 6 months before root might saves your phone ass, if something happens... and I seriously doubt you gona gain that much if you root now... unless you're uber modder/rom cooker
Don't get me wrong though, I personally recommend every android user to root lol... Android without root is like iPhone... what is the point of the ability to pretty much modify everything but you dont use it? (dont get mad now iphone fans... Im on android just coz of the customization, not of brand or specs)
I know there are multiple threads about rooting but I am thoroughly confused even after researching on here and google. I will be exchanging my phone for a new Sprint Note 3 today and just want to know what is the best way or program to root my note 3 since I've seen stuff about "tripping knox" which would void the warranty. My main purpose for rooting is to to get Adfree and extend battery life by using SuperSU, Greenify, and Titanium backup. I won't be doing any heavy usage and messing with much of the hardware other than minor tweaks for better battery life. I'll likely also be using the stock ROM since flashing a new or custom ROM is way over my head and I believe it would be easier to unroot if needed. Since I'm not vastly knowledgeable with this stuff, the simpler the better. Please be patient with my questions as I'm a newbie.
snapper11 said:
I know there are multiple threads about rooting but I am thoroughly confused even after researching on here and google. I will be exchanging my phone for a new Sprint Note 3 today and just want to know what is the best way or program to root my note 3 since I've seen stuff about "tripping knox" which would void the warranty. My main purpose for rooting is to to get Adfree and extend battery life by using SuperSU, Greenify, and Titanium backup. I won't be doing any heavy usage and messing with much of the hardware other than minor tweaks for better battery life. I'll likely also be using the stock ROM since flashing a new or custom ROM is way over my head and I believe it would be easier to unroot if needed. Since I'm not vastly knowledgeable with this stuff, the simpler the better. Please be patient with my questions as I'm a newbie.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You really need to start reading, and you should start from this place:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-3-sprint
Pay attention to threads about the new towelroot method, since that one might be the only one that does not trip knox on 4.4.2 (if you get a phone with a very old firmware you might also use Universal Root De La Vega, but I know of little details on the Sprint model, you really need to do your reading in the specific Sprint Note 3 forum!).
Hey everyone.
New owner of G2 here. Bought today to replace my old ****ty SGS3.
I have some quick simple questions I hope you guys can resolve.
1. I think the phone comes with 4.2.2. Should I stay on it or upgrade to 4.4.2? I've heard of people in this forum that got worst battery life after updating. What should I do?
2. Once I turn it off for the first time, should I wait for the battery to finish completely and then charge it while it's off or it doesn't matter? I ask because some people say this improves the battery life for the future or something like that.
3. Last question (for now at least ). What are the risks of rooting the G2? There are so many threads about bricked G2s in this forum that it scares me. I don't plan on rooting for a while, but I would like to know first what are the risks so I can be prepared.
Do I lose warranty after rooting (but not installing roms)? Is there a way to turn the G2 completely back to stock with no traces of ever having rooted if I ever need the warranty?
Thanks for all the help!
Sensamic said:
Hey everyone.
New owner of G2 here. Bought today to replace my old ****ty SGS3.
I have some quick simple questions I hope you guys can resolve.
1. I think the phone comes with 4.2.2. Should I stay on it or upgrade to 4.4.2? I've heard of people in this forum that got worst battery life after updating. What should I do?
2. Once I turn it off for the first time, should I wait for the battery to finish completely and then charge it while it's off or it doesn't matter? I ask because some people say this improves the battery life for the future or something like that.
3. Last question (for now at least ). What are the risks of rooting the G2? There are so many threads about bricked G2s in this forum that it scares me. I don't plan on rooting for a while, but I would like to know first what are the risks so I can be prepared.
Do I lose warranty after rooting (but not installing roms)? Is there a way to turn the G2 completely back to stock with no traces of ever having rooted if I ever need the warranty?
Thanks for all the help!
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Click to collapse
1.) Going to KitKat I think you will see more benefits then downsides overall.....
2.)I personally just charged it up and used it til like 10% then charged it again....I think factory recommends charge it all the way and let it drain til 5% first time either way it won't really effect battery and didn't on my past phones...including the g2
3.) You could always end up bricking the phone when rooting a flashing stuff, if you are going to root I recommend reading up on it and following the thread directions when doing anything a asking when you have questions before hand. Also personally haven't seen a permabrick on a g2 that couldn't be flashed with stock images and fixed but that's me. A lot of bricks happen when mistakes happen.
Thanks.
After a few hours with this phone I'm completely amazed. So so much better than my SGS3.
Very fast and responsive, amazing screen, love the UI, etc.
I've rooted my last 3 phones, and for the longest time, considered it an essential step in the true Android experience.
But let's be honest, rooting is a bit of a PITA. You risk destroying your warranty, which worries me with a phone that I got on launch day. You have issues with OTA updates. If you load a custom ROM, you're blowing away all your settings each time you load an update. There's more, but I won't keep going.
Of course, there are a LOT of benefits, too. Most of them, however, are ways around annoying little nits that I have, and with this phone, I find fewer of those nits, and far fewer items that are larger than nits. With the improvements in Android and with a good launcher, I can completely hide away all of the annoying Sprint and Samsung apps.
If I rooted this phone, these are the benefits that I think I could realize are: Getting rid of the volume warning (nit), changing my boot animation (nit), Titanium backup (which I don't really need if I'm not constantly loading a new ROM), better ad blocking (nit), the ability to remove unwanted apps (bit of a nit, but it would be beneficial to reclaim the ram and storage space), and probably the biggest - wifi hotspot (which I rarely use, but I will miss if I don't have it).
I'm curious if anyone else thinks this same way about this phone. Are there other serial rooters who are not rooting the S6?
well, first thing I did with my S6 was to load custom recovery and custom ROM
Still on the same boat, don't want to trip knox by installing a custom recovery or custom kernel and not knowing what ping-pong root really does is a little worrisome.
When considering whether to root or not your S6, remember that there is a debloat method which doesn't require root: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/general/safe-to-debloat-s6-threads-t3090383.
I agree with OP: as time passes by and Android evolves there are less and less "serious" reasons to root a phone.
Pingpong is pretty safe(warranty wise) and it's easy to reflash your stock rom. I usually never root on first day but now I saw no reason not to.
Having had a rooted phone since the days of cupcake I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I got my Xperia Z2 before it was rootable with a locked bootloader and in those few months I discovered I could live without titanium backup if I wasn't flashing roms left right and centre but I hadn't realised how pervasive ads had become in the mobile world and it was something that really bugged me, as the non-root blocking methods didn't give me much joy, so when root was finally achieved I knew I couldn't live without ad-blocking.
Fast-forward a year and I was holding off the S6 for the precise reason of not being able to root without tripping knox (which given the track record of my S2, S3 & S4 all needing to be repaired under warranty I cannot afford to do), but I ended up getting it thanks to breaking my Z2, with the hope of something like pingpong coming soon enough. This time again I found it painful dealing with the ads again but to add to that there's the frankly rubbish battery in this phone compared with my old Z2, and I was having little joy zapping all the wakelocks until I got root and greenify.
So TLDR, can't live without proper ad-blocking and greenify is essential for the S6 if you actually want to have a reasonable amount of functionality without carrying around a charger.
As for me, I like rooting so I can remove bloat, freezing an app is not the same as removing it and I can't stand ads. Do what you like, I have never had issues with warranties even with knox tripped. I have had the S, S3, S4, and now the S6 and I have never had to use the warranty, which expires after the first year anyway.
ipaq_101 said:
As for me, I like rooting so I can remove bloat, freezing an app is not the same as removing it and I can't stand ads. Do what you like, I have never had issues with warranties even with knox tripped. I have had the S, S3, S4, and now the S6 and I have never had to use the warranty, which expires after the first year anyway.
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Click to collapse
well, Samsung offers 2 years warranty, here in Europe anyway.
I have rooted pretty much every single android phone I have owned and with the superb debloater app I have zero need for root now and unless Samsung do something which is very invasive I cannot see any reason to root in the future,
That and the fact I have heard of stories of ping pong root tripping knox on some devices is worrying.
I rooted every phone which I had on the first day and never had problems with warranty but the phones hasn't knox. My note 3 was rooted too but there wasn't any reason sending to repair.
Now with the s6 I don't need the root.
The Rom is debloated for. There was only Microsoft and Vodafone apps. I use them both so no reason to debloat.
Thread cleaned, please keep it nice and friendly
Whiskey
Forum Moderator
I haven't and wont root this phone. I use adblock browser which gives me a perfect ad free browsing experience. I use zero apps which bombard me with annoying ads I can't ignore, I have plenty of space on my phone, and custom Rom's won't make it faster or more stable or improve battery life so personally there's no point.
I go back and forth with the idea of rooting. Right now, there's no method for my build - so, I want to root. Previously, when there was a method for build - I didn't root. I'm kinda of the similar thought as the OP...is there really a need to root anymore? The majority of the reasons/features we rooted our phones for in the first place are now part of Android. If I do root, it will be to get the maximum benefit out of using Greenify and TB.
I've rooted all my previous android devices and this is the first phone that I don't feel like I need rooting. I did go through the process with PingPong-root so that I could clean up some apps but after I couldn't get OTA's I went and restored it to factory settings. With Nova Launcher and the ability to inactivate most of the apps I don't use I don't see the need of rooting it just yet..
I decided that I couldn't live without rooting. Those "Nits" drive crazy and I like the freedom. But I have pretty much decided to not put any custom Roms on. No matter what I end up with bugs that just aren't on the Stock Rom.
I unrooted a few days ago to fix Google now (I broke it somehow) and am having a hard time redoing it. Other then modding the themes..I can't find another reason. Most of the time I break stuff anyways lol so might be better if I dont!
Sheldor1967 said:
I decided that I couldn't live without rooting. Those "Nits" drive crazy and I like the freedom. But I have pretty much decided to not put any custom Roms on. No matter what I end up with bugs that just aren't on the Stock Rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that's the only way I do it. I just root the stock rom and get rid of the ads. Backup my apps with titanium backup. All the usual things that I can't do with a non rooted phone.
With regards,
Beston94
My biggest reason I'd consider rooting is AirAudio -> Airport Express devices.
I need root as I use the automation app tasker an awful lot. I haven't purchased an s6 yet but it is something I am debating. It is between the s6 and N6 but either way I will be rooting whichever I choose
---------- Post added at 04:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 PM ----------
Sheldor1967 said:
I decided that I couldn't live without rooting. Those "Nits" drive crazy and I like the freedom. But I have pretty much decided to not put any custom Roms on. No matter what I end up with bugs that just aren't on the Stock Rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which method did you opt for with regards to rooting?
Flashed TWRP and the rooted from there. Knox is tripped - O-Well. I did it before the other methods were available...