Why should I root my Rezound?

[shaneneff]

I have had one a lot of android devices (both phones and tablets), and have never rooted any of them. This decision has largely been based out of fear and cost vs. reward. Even though I have worked in the IT industry for 15 years, I am nervous about 'bricking' my phone.

Since HTC has unlocked the bootloader and sense is such a resource hog, I am considering rooting.

Can I get some feedback around the risk and what benefits I can expect? I understand the following:

Less bloat
No sense
Free Wifi hotspot

What else?

Thanks in advance!

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk

 

[buckifvr]

I understand your fear and apprehension. I felt the same way, but I did it, and it's really not that difficult. Rooting just gives you more control over you device. First you have to unlock then root. Afterwards you can install a custom recovery for system backup purposes. I posted a thread entitled Quick Links to Unlock Bootloader and Root which will lead you to sites with step by step instructions. Then you can use CleanFast by Scrosler to install the amon ra recovery.

Sent from my HTC Rezound using Tapatalk

 

[Postoid]

I have had one a lot of android devices (both phones and tablets), and have never rooted any of them. This decision has largely been based out of fear and cost vs. reward. Even though I have worked in the IT industry for 15 years, I am nervous about 'bricking' my phone.

Since HTC has unlocked the bootloader and sense is such a resource hog, I am considering rooting.

Can I get some feedback around the risk and what benefits I can expect? I understand the following:

Less bloat
No sense
Free Wifi hotspot

What else?

Thanks in advance!

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk

I'm sure will see others with experience that will add to this but I have no experience like some that post to this fine group about rooting but I'll decide after ICS comes out. I'm learning from reading posts and looking into other forums about unlocking bootloaders and custom ROMs and find it along with the open source code really interesting. I'm also lucky I paid 1? for my phone
If you paid full/half price for your phone vs the fear of having it "bricked" because of rooting then you should look long and hard about jumping in. What does some of your IT friends say about it? On the other hand, if your Rezound works fine, your somewhat happy with it and you only put the bloat and no Sense in the way of moving on, then you should just let it go "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I believe the Rezound will work FOR you either way. Enjoy it !

 

[JeffDenver]

Can I get some feedback around the risk and what benefits I can expect? I understand the following:

Less bloat
No sense
Free Wifi hotspot

What else?

Benefits: IMO it is worth it JUST to debloat. That reason alone makes the process worth it. I noticed launcherPro runs "normally" now that Sense is gone (not all of Sense stays active in memory, but some things like the Facebook widgets do, even if you never use them). I really like having full control over what is sitting in my system/apps folder. My rooted/unlocked Rezound is significantly faster than the original. I typically have 300-400MB of RAM free (under stock I had between 100 and 150 free) and Quadrant scores jumped about 150 points. The UI (using LauncherPro) is silky smooth again, like it should have been. Sense isnt awful, but I like LauncherPro a lot better and rooting allowed me to rid myself of the Sense pollution on my phone. An obvious benefit is that it will give you the option to install ROMs in the future if you want (so you will get ICS way before official users do).

Risk: You should assume that your warranty will be void. That is speculation at this point (it is entirely possible that HTC will still support it and even possible that you can get Verizon to do so) but you should assume the worst if you are going to do this. Asurion insurance is unaffected...they do not care if you are rooted or not. There is zero risk to your insurance. HTC implies on their own page that they will still honor the warranty on most things. I know from experience that Verizon is often sloppy in their record keeping, and that you can get them to warranty rooted devices (I've seen this actually done before). This process is a ONE WAY TRIP...once you use the unlock token, you will have a scarlet "R" on your forehead and HTC (and probably Verizon) will forever know that you have done the unthinkable.

It is possible to return to stock completely...but you cannot undo that token. That is the part that is irreversible. Even if you restore everything to stock and re-lock the bootloader (and yeah, that can be done) it will not change anything as far as HTC and Verizon are concerned.

 

[not2gutta]

I was going to try rooting my phone for the first time in my life today..I mainly want to get rid of the bloatware, not sense necessarily...its up to me whether to get rid of sense or not right? Also, are you suppose to do a backup BEFORE doing anything(titanium backup I believe)? I also would like to tether for free, is Verizon going to spy on me and penalize me for doing so(I have unlimited data and wont be going haywire with it)? Also, how do you "brick" a phone? Deff want tio avoid that!!!

I plan on doing this through htvdev.com ....what options do I do first? First box is "open sense sdk", second is "unlock bootloader", third is "kernal source code". Should I do them in order to unlock it?

Sincerely,
Noob

 

[JeffDenver]

If you paid full/half price for your phone vs the fear of having it "bricked" because of rooting then you should look long and hard about jumping in.

Well, insurance can mitigate that a great deal. The most it will cost me to replace my phone now is $100 (the amount of the Asurion deductible). It does not even matter if the damage is my fault, they will still cover it.

if your Rezound works fine, you're somewhat happy with it and you only put the bloat and no Sense in the way of moving on, then you should just let it go "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I believe the Rezound will work FOR you either way. Enjoy it !

QFT.

If you are unsure whether or not you want to root, then there is your answer. You can always root later. Unless Verizon throws a hissy fit and forces HTC to stop allowing this, but I personally doubt that is going to happen. In fact, I think Samsung might start doing this next.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a stock Rezound...the UI is perfectly fast enough and it is pretty. I am unusual in that I despise bloatware and especially Verizon VCast crap...so I had a personal Jihad to rid myself of them. But if that still doesnt bother you, and you dont care about installing ROMs, you should stick to stock.

 

[JeffDenver]

I was going to try rooting my phone for the first time in my life today..I mainly want to get rid of the bloatware, not sense necessarily...its up to me whether to get rid of sense or not right?

Yes. There are scripts that will do it, but I just did it manually. I made a folder on my SD Card called "Stock backup" and moved all the APKs of the files I did not want to load into that folder. So if I want to go back to stock now, I can.

Also, are you suppose to do a backup BEFORE doing anything(titanium backup I believe)?

I think Titanium backup requires root. So you cant do it first...you gotta root first. I dont use it now, but I used it all the time on my rooted Droid 1 and loved it.

I also would like to tether for free, is Verizon going to spy on me and penalize me for doing so (I have unlimited data and wont be going haywire with it)?

I would be real careful with this...I have been told that Verizon can somehow tell if you are using this even if you are rooted. And they are being assholes about it. I have also heard of people getting away with sharing wifi indefinitely and not being caught.

Also, how do you "brick" a phone?

Bricking means you have screwed up the OS to such a degree that you cannot get into it to fix it anymore...even to reset to stock.

In reality this is hard to do, because most of the time you can at least get it connected to a PC in the recovery console, and use SDK (or whatever) to fix it. But it is always a risk. In my experience bricking is quite rare. A friend of mine did manage to brick his Droid 1, but I think it already had hardware problems.

I plan on doing this through htvdev.com ....what options do I do first? First box is "open sense sdk", second is "unlock bootloader", third is "kernal source code". Should I do them in order to unlock it?

HTC's site goes through the process in tight idiot-proof detail. They have very very good instructions IMO. The screenshots looked identical to my Vista Windows PC. Make sure you download all the needed files ahead of time and install the HTC sync program (links on on their page).

Remember that unlocking is not "rooting"...unlocking just gives you the option to root afterwards...it is a pre-requisite. The Z4 method of rooting is what I used...you basically connect the unlocked phone to your PC after you set it in Fastboot mode and run a batch (.bat) file. The bat file automates everything. The process is pretty fast.

Just Unlocking - HTCdev - Unlock Bootloader - Note that this will WIPE ALL PERSONAL DATA ON YOUR DEVICE...back your stuff up and remove your SD card before you do this.

Just Rooting - [TOOL] Temp Root Only & App Management Tool - Version 2 (12/4/11) - xda-developers (ZergRush is just their cutsey name for this rooting method)

Complete guide (beginning to end) from XDA - [GUIDE] Super-noob guide to unlocking, rooting, and flashing Ziggys kernel - xda-developers

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If you root, download these files:

Root Explorer - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.speedsoftware.rootexplorer - Frankly, the best file explorer on Android period, but it will give you access to system folders as well, which most other file managers wont do even if you are rooted. Make sure you click the toggle button for "R/W", as system folders are set to Read Only by default. I found this to be the most intuitive file manager I have ever used on Android. It is fast and unflashy...it is all business. This is a paid app.

Titanium Backup - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup - An awesome App that gives you tight control over what and when you back up. It has a free version.

SMS backup and Restore - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore - This will allow you to backup all your texts and restore them at will. It is free. This app does not require root to work.

Call Log Backup - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.riteshsahu.CallLogBackupRestore - This will save all of your Call Logs and allow you to restore them as well. It is free. This app does not require root to work.

 

[buckifvr]

After I unlocked my bootloader via HTCdev, I used the ZergRush method to root, which is very easy. Backed up apps and data with Titanium backup. Then installed Amon Ra Recovery using Scrosler CleanFast.

Sent from my HTC Rezound using Tapatalk

 

[buckifvr]

Sorry, CleanFlash

Sent from my HTC Rezound using Tapatalk

 

[JeffDenver]

More info on how unlocking affects your warranty:

New Info RE: HTCDev Unlock Manufacturer Warranty

This guy's experience seems to be common. Apparently all unlocking does is increase your liability under the warranty...it does not actually void the warranty.

And of course Verizon may refuse to service it...which means you will have to go through HTC directly.

 

[burwil]

So you root your phone and install a custom ROM. Then an HTC update comes along. Does that break the root....what are your next steps.

BTW, I've rooted my DroidX and Droid original. Both at the end of their lives. Gingerbread was updated somewhat recently but I froze the updater so was unaffected. But that also freezes your Market and some other apps.

 

[dpham00]

More info on how unlocking affects your warranty:

New Info RE: HTCDev Unlock Manufacturer Warranty

This guy's experience seems to be common. Apparently all unlocking does is increase your liability under the warranty...it does not actually void the warranty.

And of course Verizon may refuse to service it...which means you will have to go through HTC directly.

That isn't anything new, Verizon reps spout different things depending on who you talk to.

The sim unlock thing catches me as odd, I have had several phones sim unlocked by verizon, they gave me the codes and directions over the phone.

 

[Dovahkiin]

So you root your phone and install a custom ROM. Then an HTC update comes along. Does that break the root....what are your next steps.

If you let an OTA go through with root, it may unroot your phone. The next step from then on is to simply use the rooting method again. Sometimes the old root method won't work, however, and a new root method needs to be developed. I believe this happened with Bionic owners.
If you're worried, it's probably best to wait out the OTA a few days and read up about how it affects your phone/root either on here or on XDA.

Also, keep in mind that sometimes OTA's "need" the bloat that you've uninstalled, so it's best to have that backed up.

 

[burwil]

When root is broken is the phone still usuable? What actually happens?

 

[Dovahkiin]

When root is broken is the phone still usuable? What actually happens?

Basically, becoming unrooted means that your Superuser access is taken away. Remember the stuff you couldn't do on your phone before you rooted it? That's what you're going back to.
The phone is perfectly fine. You'll just be unable to remove bloat or use apps that depend on root (like Titanium Backup, Bloat Freezer, PDANet, etc.)
If this still confuses you, try to think of it like this; your computer. Being rooted is similar to having your own administrator account. You can delete/install programs, overclock/underclock, and do anything as you please. Not having root access is like using a guest account, you still have internet and the computer can function as intended, but you're not allowed to remove applications or mess around with system files.

 

[burwil]

Thanks, that's been very helpful. Google not so much.

 

[JeffDenver]

If you let an OTA go through with root, it may unroot your phone. The next step from then on is to simply use the rooting method again. Sometimes the old root method won't work, however, and a new root method needs to be developed. I believe this happened with Bionic owners.
If you're worried, it's probably best to wait out the OTA a few days and read up about how it affects your phone/root either on here or on XDA.

Also, keep in mind that sometimes OTA's "need" the bloat that you've uninstalled, so it's best to have that backed up.

Am I correct in assuming that OTA might break root but cant "re-lock" the bootloader?

 

[Dovahkiin]

Thanks, that's been very helpful. Google not so much.

You're welcome. My Droid-fu isn't at master levels, but I'm happy to help train any noobs seeking wisdom.

Am I correct in assuming that OTA might break root but cant "re-lock" the bootloader?

You're correct. I've never heard of an OTA being able to lock a bootloader. Is it possible? Most likely not.
Losing superuser access isn't difficult, but I'd imagine re-locking the bootloader can't be done with a OTA update, as those mainly deal with software tweaks.

 

[not2gutta]

Thanks so much everyone for the feedback!!! Here are my hopefully final questions about rooting...

1)Backing up apps/important info on your SD card...how do you do this exactly? And should I remove the sd card before starting the process?

2)Unlocking- This is the first process..can I delete bloatware doing just this step?

3)What does "flash" mean...and how do you do it?

4) I guess I have to install "Android SDK" on my computer before starting the process...there are two links for windows..do I DL them both? The instructions say i have to unzip them...how do you do that. I'm following [HOW TO] Unlock Rezound's Bootloader [HTCdev.com]

5)Future updates- So if I rtoot my phone and ICS comes out, what happens?

Thanksya!,
Noob

 

[xxfallacyxx]

1) Most use the App "Titanium Backup" to backup their apps AND remove the bloat. You need to be rooted first though.

2) Unlocking the boot loader does not remove anything from the OS. What unlocking does for you in this instance is to provide for permanent root, as opposed to the temporary root we had before.

3) There's a rooting & ROMs subsection to the forum. If you are ever at the point where you want to flash a new ROM or whatever, then read through there. However (no offense meant) you're not at the point where you're ready to flash anything, as signified by your question #4

4) Unzipping a file in windows is pretty easy as Windows supports extraction of zip files. When you download these files, what you're going to do is:

A) Find the downloaded file. I can't tell you where it will be, as this is determined by a few specifics like what operating system you're using, and what web browser you're using to download it. Make sure you pay attention to where the file says it's been saved, and then navigate to that folder using Windows Explorer.

B) Once you've found the file (it should look like a folder with a zipper on it), double click it. Windows will open it and show you the contents of the zip file.

C) Copy and paste the files you need to the directory the instructions tell you to.​

5) This again is something we cannot tell you for certain.

If you root your phone and leave it at that, then when ICS comes out you should most likely be able to update without issue, but lose root access.

If you've rooted and removed certain carrier programs AKA bloat, then your device may not accept the installation of the update. In order to remedy this situation you would need to reinstall the bloat you've removed, and possibly other things.​

In all honesty I don't know if you are someone who "needs" root access. Have you enjoyed the phone thus far? Were there any issues that you could not get resolved?