How to Root your phone?

So, you are a proud owner of new and shinny top of the line Android smartphone. You played with it, it is always in your hands or in your close proximity, you have explored every inch of that gorgeous  screen and abused all of it's settings hoping to find a last hidden option that you somehow missed . But yet, you still find yourself wanting, demanding more! More themes, more settings, more applications, more of everything.  If this is the case than you might be affected by chronic smartphone dependency and you are in need of an urgent treatment. The cure is quick, works like a charm every time and it simply implies applying a bit of "root" to your smartphone.

Before you attempt to root your precious device, make sure that you have done your part of reading. The most important aspect here is to be well informed and conscientious in following the necessary steps to successfully root your phone. Informing yourself about the basics of rooting can be achieved in the best place on the internet to find rooting guides and custom ROM's and that place is definitely  +XDA Developers Forum. Once you get yourself comfortable with +xda-developers , search for a topic specific to your device and it's almost certain that you will discover a method for rooting that has been tested before and proven to work for everybody.  XDA Developers Forum is the most trustworthy source for rooting guides.The time spent researching the right method to root your device will be also useful in your future technical endeavors.

Rooting preparations

You start by making sure that your smartphone is fully charged. You will also have to turn USB debugging option on in your phone (you can find this option under settings/developer menu on most phones) Also, most likely, you will be plugging your phone in your computer in order to root it and to do that you need appropriate USB drivers that you will find on the website of your phone manufacturer.

Installing Android SDK on your PC is a must and you may also find that other software is required. So, make sure that you install all the software that you need before proceeding further.

• One-click rooting

The easiest way of rooting your android smartphone is by far SuperOneClick. This method also supports a large variety of devices and it's the most secure and trouble free way of rooting your phone. Of course, there are other one-click-root solutions out there but we will focus for now on SuperOneClick. Let's get started:

1. download SuperOneClick
2. make sure you have the Android SDK running on your PC 
3. unzip and run SuperOneClick.exe 
4. make sure your phone is connected to the computer via USB 
5. check and make sure that your SD card is not mounted 
6. just go ahead and click “Root” in SuperOneClick on your PC 
7. the magic unfolds now 
8. after "Succes" check if you have SuperUser icon on your phone. If you have it than you are OK. 
9. This is it. You are done! 

See, wasn't that hard after all. You Sir, have just rooted your phone and a world of geeky wonders awaits you: custom ROM's, overclocked processors, thousand of themes, deep customization and tones of new way to control your newly reborned smartphone.

Happy Rooting everybody!

By Aleman Adrian

What is Root and why should you do it (or not)?

Would you like to have more control over your smartphone? Is your technical mojo fully charged? Are you in the mood for something new and exciting?If the answer is yes than you should go ahead and definitely root you smartphone.

But first  you should read and understand about what you are going to do and follow the instruction to the letter. The most important thing here is to be careful. Do a backup of your data and be sure that you have all the tools that you need for rooting your phone before you begin. The risks that you take when rooting your android smartphone are minimal and the potential benefits are pretty impressive. But let's not go ahead of ourselves, first things first:

What is Root?

You don’t get root access to your Android device straight outta the box and several applications won’t function without you having root access to your investment. To make things easier to understand i'll make use of an analogy. If you have interacted with a Windows PC in the past, chances are that you had administrative rights and you could have altered and tune the operating system in any way that you wanted to. Rooting your Android smartphone is equivalent to having administrative privileges on Windows. In our case, this means having access to the entire Android operating system and getting around any restrictions or limitations that your smartphone manufacturer may have implemented. This is basically what happens when you proceed with the rooting of your Android smartphone.

Should i root my smartphone?

With great power comes great...fun! If you ask for my personal opinion i would advice you to go down the root way. Why? Here are some of the immediate benefits of rooting your phone: 

• You can download an run much more applications
• Gain full control over your android smartphone
• You can customize and theme your device in any way you want to
• Improve your battery life
• Free up internal storage
• Back up and restore the whole system

There are also less obvious advantages of having your Android smartphone rooted but this advantages are the ones that should matter the most in your decision to root your Android smartphone. Here you will find listed some of them:

• Rid your phone of all manufacturer's or carrier bloatware (software that you don't really need)
• Access your entire file system
• Set up wireless tethering
• Completely block advertisements
• Flash custom ROM's (install modified Android ROM which can add extra useful features to your phone; you can find more on this in other dedicated posts on this blog)
• Speed up your phone by overclocking the CPU

What are the risks of rooting my smartphone?

Before you proceed with the rooting of your Android device you should take in consideration the risks that come  with this procedure. There are three main concern factors:

1. Voiding phone warranty: if you root your phone you will most likely loose your manufacturer or carrier warranty. Imagine this scenario: after you have successfully rooted your phone something goes wrong with your touchscreen or battery. In these case you will not be able to take full benefit from you warranty. But remember this, your phone can be very  easy un-rooted and you can than install the original firmware of your phone and your warranty will be valid once again.
2. Bricking your smartphone: there is a minor risk that you will end up with a phone useful to you as a brick. This could happen only if you don't follow the necessary steps in rooting your phone or if you flash a ROM that wasn't designed for your device. If you do your homework before trying to root your phone, follow the right steps and pay attention to what you are doing the possibility of bricking your phone should be almost nonexistent.
3. Security and Malware risk. You could be confronted with some security risk after you have rooted your phone depending on what applications you install. 

To root or not to root, this could be a question.

If you enjoy being able to tinker with all of your phones settings, discover new ones by installing custom ROM's or you like to customize every single inch of your smartphone screen by installing countless themes - than rooting is the answer for you. Other potential benefits that come from rooting your phone like -overclocking your CPU, improved battery life, eradicating the bloatware, root-only applications, improved general performance - could only cement your decision to root your phone and you’re most likely to find the hole process of rooting extremly rewarding.

Depending on your willingness to experiment with new things and your technical proficiency , rooting your phone should be a straightforward process. If not one of the above benefits intrigues you, rooting your android phone probably isn’t for you.

By Aleman Adrian