We’ll start by talking about the most basic question – what does it mean when one says he should/should not root his Android? Let’s see.
Rooting an Android phone… What Does it Mean?
Well, rooting an Android phone simply means to gain administrative privileges (or root access if you are from a Linux background) on the system. When you buy a new Android phone, you are just a guest user on the phone. You can use the phone, just as a guest would use Windows, but you will not be able to make any changes to the system files. However, after you have a root access over your phone, you could browse your Android root folder and make any changes to the system files on your phone. And that’d mean the ability to make all kinds of changes and install more powerful apps that you can’t use on a non-rooted phone. We will now be talking about both merits and demerits associated with rooting an Android phone. Let us start with the brighter side: the benefits.
Benefits of Rooting an Android Phone
Here are some of the advantages of using a rooted Android phone.
Run Special Applications
After you have rooted your phone, you can run special applications that require root access on your phone. When compared to regular applications, root applications provide more features. As these special apps can directly deal with the Android system files, they can tweak your Android in more extensive ways. For example, you can uninstall multiple applications silently after you have root access using eUninstall.
Run Custom ROMs
One of the main reasons I rooted my phone was because I wanted to install and use custom ROMs on it. These custom ROMs bring many teaks and performance fixes and are much more user friendly when compared to the stock ones. They are optimized in performance and battery are updated more frequently than the stock ROMs.
Free Internal Storage
People who have low internal memory can transfer any application from internal memory to SD card after rooting their phone. There are some applications that provide the option by default. But if you want to force move an app by creating a symlink, you must use an app that only works on a rooted phone. So those were about the merits. Nothing’s perfect and there are certain caveats associated with rooting an Android device.
Disadvantages of Rooting Your Android
So, let’s take a look at the demerits of rooting your Android.
Your Phone Might Get Bricked
Not to demotivate you here, but when I tried to root my first Android phone – Samsung Galaxy S – I bricked it and it was in the service center for next 15 to 20 days. No matter how good a rooting tutorial is, it’s a daunting task and if you miss out any step or flash a corrupt zip file (that’s what happened to me) you might end up with a bricked (broken) phone. Now assuming that you are not a power user, you will have to go to your phone manufacturer’s service center and get your phone fixed. Moreover, if they come to know that the brick or semi-brick has caused because you were trying to root your phone, you might as well be charged for it.
You End up Voiding Phone’s Warranty
As soon as you root your phone, you void your phone’s warranty and if anything happens to your phone even when it’s in the warranty period, the company is going to charge you for the repairs. In some of the phones, you can un-root your phone, but in most of the phones there’s is no going back.
Conclusion
So, you’ve been acquainted and warned. If you think that rooting the phone to run special applications and custom ROM is worth is, go ahead. If you think it’s not worth the hassle, stay put. At the end of the day, it’s depends on your usage and what you want your phone to do for you. Of course, proceeding with caution no matter how great an expert you think you are is always advisable. The bricking incident never stopped me from rooting my phone again. What about you? Are you going to root your Android phone?
