Alright, so now that you have bought yourself a flashy new Android powerhouse which doesn’t cost a fortune, you are now amongst the thousands of others who made a smart decision to do the same.
Being open source, the Android operating system developed by Google is undoubtedly the best OS till date to be used in smartphones world over. Now, most people do not understand how open source software like the Android comes as a benefit. Well, this is a guide which will answer your questions and also give you a procedure on how to unleash the true potential of your new smartphone by a method known as ROOTING.
The advantage of open source software is that the raw code of the software is available. And through this comes a lot of freedom for many tech enthusiasts out there to modify that code and custom design a new code to fit their needs and personalities. The same is the deal with android phones. Even though the OS which your phone uses is open source the manufacturer puts a lock on the devices software so that their custom software can run on it with settings of the phone decided by the company. Now, most manufactures install software which limits the actual capabilities of the devices hardware. Like in many phones such as the Motorola Defy, even though the processor has an operating frequency of 1GHz it is under clocked to 800MHz and sold.
To break this lock which the manufacturer sets on the phone is known as “ROOTING” a phone where you get ‘super user’ rights and privileges to the phones software. After you have done this procedure (described later in the article) there are several possibilities which you can unlock.
• You may speed up your android device by using third party software’s which will increase the operating frequency of your device and thus boosting performance.
• One drawback which occurs is not being able to install themes in stock rom (original software) of your phone. This is taken care of when you root your device and you now have the ability to alter system files and control all the graphics, third party software’s allow you to install new themes and totally change the look and feel of your device.
• You will have more applications to choose from as some applications are compatible only with rooted devices and the best part is that you will now have the ability to install custom ROMS developed by coders around the world which have proved to have better performance than the stock ROMS.
• After rooting you can also enable tethering, and hence share cellular data on your phone using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. And the list goes on.
Now that you have decided to root your phone there something’s that will need to know and understand and some software’s like ‘super-oneclick root’ or ‘universal root’. Because rooting process differs in a way from device to device you should know the procedure for your particular phone which can be easily learnt at ‘XDA developers forums’ where they explain you the correct process on how to root your particular model.
Risk of Rooting Android Devices
Rooting however does come with a certain amount of risks one of them being voiding any warranty on the device. But this can be overcome, as you can always choose to go back to the stock ROM of your phone even after rooting. Other than voiding warranty (which can be regained) there are pretty much no risks involved unless a freak accident occurs while you are flashing the ROM. So even though it is a painless process to root your phone, it is always better to do your homework and studying so that the process is smooth as possible. All the best!