This guest article was written by MildlyDisturbed.
If you're anything like me, then I feel sorry for you.
You have a freshly rooted HTC EVO 4G running the cutting edge of custom ROMs, your battery lasts all day, you can take your movies with you and play them on a TV via HDMI, you can swap kernels to do what you want to do, you can set up a wireless hotspot so your iPhone friends can Facetime each other, you can monitor every last drop of juice left in the battery . . . and your significant other has an EVO she won't let you root because she witnessed the journey you took with your phone and all the failures that came with it.
She asks why her EVO is running so slowly and you have to say it's because Sprint Football, NASCAR, Gmail, Batteryminder, Wordfeud, Words with Friends, Qik, Media, Tango, Animated Wallpaper, Foursquare, Facebook, Maps, Lookout, Voicemail, Cardiotrainer, Groupon, Internet, Automated Task Killer, XFinity, Yelp, and a hoary host of other applications all want to load and take up memory, leaving next to nothing available for running programs. While explaining this, the battery alert pops up and you have to swap the battery out.
You mention that this could all be solved if the phone were just given to you for about an hour, but are told again that she just wants to "keep it simple" because she doesn't want to have all the bells and whistles or to see the face you made that time you thought you bricked your EVO.
If you're anything like me, then you might need something like this.
Your significant other is stuck on a stock EVO platform that while once great, now seems like a desolate computer lab with MS-DOS 6 and Duke Nukem 1 installed on every machine. You say (because she told you) that she doesn't care about the benefits of rooting, WiFi hotspot, responsiveness, playing movies out the HDMI, overclocking for performance, forcing applications to the SD card, underclocking to conserve battery, uninstalling bloatware, and changing ROMs as often as you change your underwear. So tell her that rooting allows more than that.
Tell her all of this too:
- You can change the startup animations and music. Some good ones can be found here (although you may need to sign up for an acount): Android Central forums | Android Forums. You can find a lot more (even a Hello Kitty one) by doing a simple Google search.
- You can use any MP3 as a startup sound; the music will cut off once the phone's booted.
Note: Technically, you don't need root to push music or a boot animation to your EVO if you download the Android SDK and a Java Developer's Edition. However, when I downloaded and installed them, it took a long time to get ADB (push) working properly, so I think having root to do these things just makes it easier.
- You can change how large or small the text and icons are.
- You can change the fonts.
- You can automatically clear the cache for your applications (alternative app here).
- You can stop programs from taking up all the internal space and nagging you about space running out.
- You can map a button on the EVO to control music.
- You can go to sleep listening to music that will eventually turn itself off.
- You can get YouTube and music streaming (and Sirius/XM) working correctly again.
- You can flash a kernel with multitouch so you can press more than 2 points on the EVO (e.g., useful to play a piano app better) or increase the volume past 100%.
- You can cheat at Angry Birds.
- You can use your Wiimote to play games from your childhood.
- You can turn off the backlights on the Home/Menu/Search buttons.
- You can force roaming mode if the Sprint signal isn't cutting it.
- You can hide text messages from people (like the guy who's hell bent on rooting your phone)
———————————-
In the end, it's your partner's choice. Just remember that the stock ROM is the stick and the list above is the carrot; no matter how wrong it may seem to let someone you love go unrooted, you just gotta let them walk that walk. Oh, but mentioning that rooting saves kittens might help too.
This guest article was written by MildlyDisturbed, who knows that not all significant others are women and doesn't mind if you substituted "she/her" with "he/him" while reading.
Yep thats my husband…doesnt trust me enough not to break his evo…
Nice article, but what are the negatives / drawbacks to rooting your evo? Warranty void? I recently had to send mine back to sprint b/c of the charger port malfunction, so I’m a bit wary to do something that would void my warranty etc
I have been on the fence about rooting my EVO for a while now. Such as Acumen stated, what are the drawbacks etc… How hard is it to root the phone and which is the best ROM to root to?
My GF wouldn’t let me root her Evo for 4 months.
She used to have an iPhone and she loved it.
So I showed her a video of MIUI in action and as soon as she was done watching it, she handed me her Evo and said:
- I want this (pointing to the video) on this (pointing on her Evo).
That was it
P.S. She ended up not liking MIUI and I slapped a rooted stock ROM, but she enjoys the custom kernels and a battery that lasts longer.
It takes about 5 minutes to unroot your phone and they will never know. Its your phone,you can have good battery life if you wanted.
@Acumen and @James:
I had my rooted Evo replaced in a Sprint store b/c of malfunctioning USB port. There were no questions asked.
I backed up my system to SD card (one of the features of being rooted) and when they handed me another Evo, took me less than 30 minutes to root it with Unrevoked and restore my system from a backup.
I tried almost all ROMs for Evo and my ROM of choice is VaelPak (vaelek.com). There are recent benchmarks that show Vaelpack being on par and even surpassing AOSP ROM in speed and, of course, features since it offers both Sense and AOSP apps.
If you decide to root your phones, PLEASE do youself a favor and read up on everything before starting the process. Better safe than sorry.
Or find a knowledgeable friend, like me who can do it for you
First, you have too really f* up in order to brick your phone. As long as follow the instruction and back up your ROM before any changes you attempt, than you shouldn’t have any problems. I have a couple of different sprint reps inform me that as long as I have insurance the phone, I will be covered by that even if I brick it. Go for it man, rooting your phone is the best thing you can do for it. I have greatly enjoyed the many benefits of rooting my phone.
OK, I have been skeptical, But now I am interested. Especially after seeing the battery life achieved with a rooted EVO. I need some education.Can anyone help with where to go? What is the safest route? What does Flash, Root, Kernel mean? What is the best ROM?
thanks in advance!
The newer methods of rooting is a lot easier than the rooting method used when the EVO first came out. However, you must follow instructions carefully. If you do this, rooting will be painless and seamless.
As far as the best ROM to use, that’s up to you. A lot of people try a few before they find one they like. Everyone has their favorite so it basically takes a little trial and error on your part. I would check the XDA Developers forums, read up on the features of each ROM and check the feedback from users who are actually using it. The biggest benefit to rooting is the incredible improvement to your battery life. That was a huge plus for me more than anything else.
OK, I have been skeptical, But now I am interested. Especially after seeing the battery life achieved with a rooted EVO. I need some education.Can anyone help with where to go? What is the safest route? What does Flash, Root, Kernel mean? What is the best ROM?
thanks in advance!
(Sorry for the duplicate, the previous used beagleart@yahoo.com which no longer exists.)
…and how much did it cost you to send it in for maintenance? I’m guessing $50. At that price, plus just a little more you could easily just buy a new evo instead of a warranty. Plus sending it in even twice would cover the amount for a new phone with new 2yr contract. I think they are down to $100 in places. That’s just the way I see it.
Beagle http://www.goodandevo.net/2011/03/how-to-root-backup-and-flash-new-rom-and-kernel-on-your-htc-evo.html is a great tutorial to use to root your evo. I have used many of them but this one is definetly for beginers and works flawless. All this will do is root your phone from there you can leave the sprint rom or you can head over to sites like xda-developers and check out the evo forums to find other roms. Personally I have tried just about all of them and I like Fresh Rom by Flipz. It is sense and looks alot like the orignal Sprint rom without all the bloatware. Just make sure you follow the instructions on the Rom developers site on how to flash the new rom it is really simple anyone can do it. You copy the rom to your sd card on your phone then boot into recovery mode and install from zip. Trust me anyone can do it just follow their instructios. After you change your rom you can then install other PRI and Radio’s some have better battery life then others. Good luck and enjoy all the possibilities that a rooted evo will give you.
Thanks Earl! I just found that link right after I posted! I am pretty stoked about this! Still a little apprehensive though!
I think now the only ways to truly brick it are:
1) yank battery in the middle of a radio update (alternately have the battery die during an update)
2) flash a modified HBoot that does not work with your phone
3) half flash a radio, then un-root your phone
There may be more I don’t know about though
Just make sure right after you root you stop for a bit – make that nandroid backup. Realize you don’t have to change roms after rooting, you can just swap out a kernel at first… or not
A friend of my wife’s I rooted and all I did for him was give him superuser, wifi hotspot, and changed the kernel to netarchy. He’s got about 15-20% better battery now.
That massive piece I wrote was a how-to-do-it-all but you don’t have to, or you can, but you don’t have to do everything.
So, I’m on the fence here. I think I’d like to root, but I don’t want to lose all the apps on my phone. I know most of them I can go redownload from the market, but what about stuff like Gamesloft games? Will those redownload or will I have to pay for them again?
I wrote a piece that Jenn may or may not publish that involves transferring to a new ROM without losing anything useful (apps, angry birds data, text messages, mms, photos, call history, phone-specific contacts). I can’t really tell you about Gameloft specific games, anything I purchased through the market I have been able to redownload for free however.
Checkout MyBackup Root or Titanium Backup for Root (both free, although titanium has several more features if you pay).
Keep in mind rooting won’t really change anything other than access. Flashing a new ROM will. What I would suggest you do if you can’t get an answer on the gameloft games is this
1) root – nothing bad should happen
2) make a nandroid backup
3) run mybackup or titanium
4) flash new ROM
5) re-download mydownload or titanum, restore backup apps, data, text, mms, contacts, everything except for system data or home screen setup.
If it works, you’re golden, if it doesn’t flash the old Nandroid back in and you’re back to pre-rom flashing greatness
Download a program called Titanium Backup from the market. It allows you to do a complete backup of everything, both paid and unpaid apps. They have the free and paid version. I have the paid version and it was worth every penny. It has saved my butt many times. The paid version has better features than the free version. I don’t know how much the free version backs up but I know the paid one is very thorough.
I would do the backup first before you try rooting so that you don’t lose anything after you root. It saves all of your apps to your SD card. The best thing is Titanium Backup even backs up protected apps. This is good because most of the time protected apps are unable to be copied or backed up when using other backup programs.
I just rooted my wife’s EVO as well as a coworker’s. Each phone took less than 30 minutes for the entire process. That included downloading unrevoked3 and running it, installing a new ROM and kernel and performing a nandroid backup afterward.
Sounds like the exact same thing I did for my coworker today. He just wanted it to be stock like the way he had it before with wifi tether and the ability to remove Sprint bloatware. I decided to give him a better kernel too.
FYI – Rooting really lets you do cool things with the overall appearance. Here’s my current home screen:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/marko358/snap20110228_213521.png
If you’re new to the whole concept of ROMs, you’d probably want to stick with Sense-based ones. ‘Fresh’ or ‘WARM’ are great choices with a lot of community support.
Once you try your hand at things, Cyanogen Mod is a great option. But because there’s no Sense in CM roms, there are some things that will look/work different. Not to say it’s a total shock to your system, but I remember going through a small adjustment period. Also as far as functions go, things like 4G and HDMI are still being worked on as I type this, so some features could be flaky, however will only get better with time. It’s good to be familiar with flashing ROMs, and knowing some of the protocol that goes along with it, before heading down this path.
Well I’d simply get Jenn on the phone and have her solve it all out “Girl to Girl”, LOL!
No slumber party, no deal.
Thanks Jaymoon. I am currently using LauncherPro+ and love it, I am not sure if it’s a sense based launcher? As you can tell, I am pretty new to all this
hah both my parents have an evo. i get 30+ hours of battery, high 1550′s quadrants, super smooooth everything, and just about everything listed above. they will not let me root either of theirs even though they get like 15 hrs tops with less usage than me.
long live cm7 nighlies!
join us on xda
Nice article but I’d hardly consider some of the things you posted as a carrot good reasons to root your phone. I rooted my phone because I’m a nerd, pure and simple and had no clue what I’d gain at first. I’m sure there are apps to do most of those things and others don’t seem operationally advantageous. My wife’s a nerd as well but doesn’t feel like nerding on her cell phone so she won’t root and I can’t tell her that everything will be ok if she does. Everyone and every phone is different and if she toasts her phone because of something I told her would be a good thing… well, let me just say…ah, life would just suck for me.
Ok, dkdude36, I need to know everything you did, and then added to your phone to get 30 hours of battery!! I haven’t done the root thang yet. Still making sure I know everything I can before diving into this process, but I am very excited about it, because of the way it seems to have enchanced everyones experience with the EVO.
All that list and I still don’t want any of those things. Guess I am odd. Only want is a better battery life, but I do not believe it to be worth all the hassle. I like Sense as it is and I know those two things are at cross purposes.
You don’t need to install a different ROM. You can keep Sense the way it is. All rooting does is get your phone to a state where you can make alterations. If you have programs such as Root Explorer or Titanium Backup, you can remove the bloatware. I would, however, put in a different kernel. It’s the alternate kernel that leads to better battery life. Every phone is different so you may have to try a few to see which one is best for you.
My understanding is that a lot of ways to improve battery are to disable a lot of sense (not just under clocking at certain times).
If I remove bloatware I believe I can not upgrade when they go OTA. And if I do I would have to put it back on (restore phone) which sounds like a huge pain for battery life and removing bloatware.
I am no pansy when it comes to these things. I have done custom rom installs on DVD players in the past to make them region free. I am really in to tweaks. I just haven’t read enough to support my going to the hassle. I could be missing something but the biggest argument I had read before was you don’t need to worry about upgrade hassle cos a custom ROM does that for you. As you know I would have to. I do not want a custom ROM.
Another concern is that if you are rooted a dev can exploit this much more easily than the Trojan software, because you are already rooted. Just not convinced yet. But if someone wants to try to convince me I will read it.
When the new OTA comes out, well most of the ROMs have had it for weeks before and gave you an upgrade path. If you’re sticking to stock, well you simply un-root, un-freeze the bloatware that was installed, and you’re back to golden.
Un-rooting takes about 3 minutes, rooting takes about 20 if you’re doing a ROM also or 1 reboot if you’re just sticking with stock.
If you read on the DroidDream Malware you’ll notice it included code that already exploited root functions on non-rooted phones, IE having or not having root really doesn’t matter at the current stage of Android OS as they made an exploit they can package with code.
Honestly though, if you’re happy with your phone stick to it. No use rooting
Raechel, Sense hasn’t been removed from my phone and my battery life is great. “If I remove bloatware I believe I can not upgrade when they go OTA. And if I do I would have to put it back on (restore phone) which sounds like a huge pain for battery life and removing bloatware.” I don’t understand what you’re talking about. If you want the bloatware on, then leave it on.
In the end, it’s your phone and you can do what you want with it. I’m not here to convince you one way or the other, I’m just trying to talk about some of the pros of rooting. Yes, there are some cons but the pros outweigh those. I don’t know what you’re reading but it seems to be a lot of misinformation. If you have that much trepidation about rooting then maybe it’s not for you.
Ok, dkdude36, I need to know everything you did, and then added to your phone to get 30 hours of battery!! I haven’t done the root thang yet. Still making sure I know everything I can before diving into this process, but I am very excited about it, because of the way it seems to have enchanced everyones experience with the EVO. What Kernels do you have? What ROM do you use?
Wireless Tether 4G for free
HDMI out for anything
Battery life
Faster internet
ability to stop using sprint proxy
ability to change boot animations
use a wii-mote with your phone (and HDMI-out and an emulator)
Change icons, drop down, roam automatically, freeze bloatware, uninstall bloatware, backup your phone in its current state, transfer your programs, settings, etc to a different phone, save the perfect setup, recover from a virus/malware with 2 taps, record conversations (may not be root-exclusive), any of the stuff listed in this page, flash a ROM and decide you don’t like it and flash back, transfer settings and programs and contacts to a new rom, and basically install whatever you please without having to be sandboxed
However, as stated before, if you don’t want a custom rom and you’re happy with the limits Sprint has given you both software-wise and battery-wise, stick with what you have. Nobody will judge you for wanting what you have. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that a non-rooted ROM is any safer though.
How did you do it because it says I am missing the kernel and it is not rooted I TOO have an evo 4g 2.2 version. I need help. i do not want to pay for the hotspot wifi.
I had the same thing happen. Gave it to them STILL ROOTED, with a busted usb port, and they still took it and gave me a new/refurbed one for all of 40 bucks. Never said anything about it being rooted or running Cyanogenmod 6.
Hi everybody, wrestled my wife’s evo away from her. Pre in in the drawer. What does the term ROOT mean? I see it is a process that makes the phone more adjustable? Is this like JAILBREAKING? whatever that means… What does the term ROM mean? Read only memory is what comes to my mind. And what is a Kernel? I had a friend that sent me a pc program called kernel fun, never understood it. What is the term BLOATWARE? Is there a list of what these terms are for us over 50 EVO wanna-be’s? I have no doubt i will be doing this to my new friend, but i just want to understand what i am doing.
to root your phone means to gain super use access it’s like having administrative privileges on windows. i would suggest using unrevoked. ROM does mean read only memory, but in this case it is a term that means the firmware on your phone. when you switch out your ROM you will probably not notice too many differences, just small things, like a different lock screen or built in wifi tethering. i think the main reason is performance enhancements. the kernel s the part of your phone that actually carries out the actions, it communicates with your ROM. bloatware is the shit on your phone that you cant delete like NASCAR and sprint TV. don’t quote me on this because i am also a novice. just try things out and see what changes, but be sure to do a nandroid back up first, in case anything goes wrong.