Benefits of rooting (and the disadvantages)

Now that we have understood what root is all about and the legal aspect of rooting, now let’s take a look at the benefits of rooting as well as the disadvantages of rooting.

Here are the top benefits that you can get after rooting your phone:

1. Install More Apps – By having root access, more apps can be installed on your phone. Of course not all apps are good, some might make your phone performs worse.
2. Boosts Speed and Battery Life – By having access to more apps, some can increase the speed of your phone while at the same time increase your battery life
3. Backup Your Phone – It is indeed surprising that in order to backup your phone, you need to root your phone, so if you ever lost a phone or lost your data, this is a must
4. Free Up Space – By default, all apps and it’s data are installed on your internal memory, so if you have limited internal storage space, you can now move the apps as well as the data to your SD card
5. Latest OS Updates – Don’t you hate it when you just bought your phone few months ago and was told that there will be no more updates for it? Stuck at Jelly Bean and your manufacturer won’t provide updates to KitKat? Don’t worry, there are tons of developers who can provide the updates
6. Flash a Custom Kernel – Fret that your phone does not have WiFi tethering while other phones can? Slow charging times; want it to charge at a faster rate? Here are some of the things that a custom kernel can do for you even for unsupported phones, by unleashing the true potential of the hidden features of your phone
7. Flash a Custom Rom – Think of it as a customized version of your android. Instead of KitKat OS for the general masses, why not have KitKat specifically designed for your spanking new Note 3 for example. By utilizing the phone’s 3GB RAM and Quad-Core processor, why not throw everything you can at the phone’s capabilities so you get that extra performance? And if you’re looking for something more extreme, why not change the OS entirely?

Below are the major disadvantages of rooting the phone:

1. Bricking Your Phone – The main disadvantage of rooting is that you may bricked your phone and make it totally unusable and can’t even be turned on. Fortunately, there are still ways to unbrick your phone should that ever happen most of the time, but some stay bricked forever.
2. Voiding Phone’s Warranty – Most manufacturers would not repair any phone which is under warranty if it detects that the phone have been rooted before. Some phones might be able to unroot your phone back to its previous state before sending it for warranty claims while some can’t.

There you have it some of the benefits and disadvantages of rooting. It does seem that the benefits simply outweigh the disadvantages, but the choice is still yours to make. If you want total control of your phone, by all means rooting gives you just that. But if you value manufacturer’s warranty or is afraid that rooting might bricked your shining new phone, than think twice before you take the plunge.

Finally, if you think you have what it takes to root your phone, then the next article will talk about rooting your phone. Word of caution though, enter at your own risk and only if you fully understood the benefits and disadvantages of rooting.