Root New LG Optimus M (MS690) - Root Achieved!

[MikesTooLz]

I just got a new LG Optimus M about a week ago. This is my first android phone.

I downloaded z4Root in the android market and it said the root was successful and installed the superuser manager app.

How do I test that the phone is Actually rooted? I'm trying to remove all the bloatware apps that MetroPCS has included in the phone.

I downloaded the app named Android Mate (free) and it lets be browse to the /system/app directory and when I select the app and choose delete, it displays a notification that the file was deleted however it never actually gets removed.

 

[MikesTooLz]

OK, after installing Root Explorer and mounting the /system/app directory with read/write access I was able to remove all the bloatware.

 

[ChazzMatt]

OK, after installing Root Explorer and mounting the /system/app directory with read/write access I was able to remove all the bloatware.

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing. I have two on the way from FedEx for me and my wife.

Custom ROM available soon, I hope? I know there's one for Sprint's Optimus S. Surely should not be too hard for experts to modify for our M...

 

[xboxhacker]

I too am getting one for my wife (smart phone inept) I wanted to know if MikesToolz can let us know about the phone, like a review of it, he is the only one i know of who has one...lol

 

[MikesTooLz]

Yep, well I got the phone last Tuesday by finding an "authorized dealer" that would sell it to me without making me come in on friday or saturday durring the crazyness of black friday shoppers. We got two of them and so far they have been great.

This is my first android phone so I wont be of much help as far at compairing other android phones to this one.

I used to have an iphone 3G and 3Gs before switching over to metroPCS, I still have an iPad to keep me up to date with the latests iOS updates and have made a few iPhone/iPad apps that are in the apps store. With this new android phone I may end up making some android apps, depending on how much free time I have this year.

Back to the phone, the screen size is pretty close to what I was used to with my iPhone, its not one of those huge jumbo screens that saw with the HTC android phones on display at places like t-mobile and Sprint.

The phone has a sticker on the back that says "Qualcomm 3G"However in my area the phone has only shown the X1 indicator up on the menubar. I dont know if this is because MetroPCS is not currently supporting the 3G or if its just not in my area.

I performed a speedtest with he app: speedtest.net and got the following results:
130kbps up
324kbps down

The speeds are not supper fast however its acceptible. Plus you have the option of connecting to wifi if you need to.

this is hands down the best phone available to metroPCS, The 4G phone doesnt even have anything compaired to this. The new 4G craft or what ever its called that is coming out is not a true smartphone like this one is.

All I can say is that I am super happy with this phone and the low monthly bill that I have from metro.

The phone is very responsive, no lagging or jitters like I was affraid there would be.

Camera is good, here is a picture I took with phones camera. http://lh4.ggpht.com/_kCkDPrMyGPs/TPPr5KekJeI/AAAAAAAACk0/izQ47FdN8pQ/s800/112710150832.jpg
also the auto fucus on the camera is great for the barcode scanning apps.

battery life lasts me probably about 75%-85% of my day before I have to recharge it. This should get better over time after I stop playing with it ALL DAY LONG.

the phone comes with a 2GB micro SD memory card, I purchased an 8GB one from target on black friday for $14.

Rooting the phone was very simple. The app in the android market named z4Root worked with the Optimus M both rooting and unrooting. It was just a click of a button and the rooting was done.



One REALLY big downside to this phone that makes me mad is that this phone is loaded full of bloatware. Its got a ton of metroPCS apps loaded on it that are useless, and the bad thing is that you cant remove or unistall the metroPCS apps. There are 3 in particular that were starting to drive me crazy. MetroPCS Easy Wifi, Boingo Wifi, and My Extras. The my extras app randomly just pops up advertisments on the screen, while the other two wifi apps constantly display notifications and play the alert sound when you get in range of any wifi. The metoPCS apps both cant be removed or turned off unless you root the phone and manualy remove the files.

On top of that they incluse the MetroPCS app store where you can download all the apps that come with the phone and cant be removed. Sorry but If I cant remove the apps why would I need to download them agian?






One last thing, I have now become addicted to the app called ShopKick. You walk into stores and get points for both just walking in and also for scanning products in the store with your phone. If you want to give it a try send me a MSG and you can use my referal code so we both get a free 100 points (i dont want to post it on her as some will see it as spam)

 

[ChazzMatt]

Hey I copied your first post over to the new LG Optimus M subforum.... Seemed like a good post to start over there!

http://androidforums.com/lg-optimus-m/227411-lg-optimus-m-rooted.html#post1934619

Why don't you go over and copy/paste the review you just wrote? Thanks for the information.

 

[woop]

Moving this to the Optimus M forum.

 

[xboxhacker]

Thanx for the reply Mike!!

You might have to use ADB to get rid of the metro apps. When i get my wife's phone, i will play around with it and post here in the Optimus M forum.

Just reading some things on the inter-web, it seems that z4root from the market with "Chinese" writing may in fact be malware...

You can get the app form the XDA site directly.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833953

 

[ChazzMatt]

Sharing some knowledge from another forum. Newbie who figured out how to do it:

OK, for anyone wanting to root their LG Optimus M phone, apparently you have to be a little more specific in the instructions on how to do this. That is if you want to actually uninstall programs.

This is my first Android phone, and I don't know what rooting is, other than it unlocks folders and features that are generally hidden from casual users. Obviously you can totally screw up your phone if you uninstall or rename a file. Just don't go killing apps willy-nilly.

Here's the breakdown... a first time noob to android phones and rooting in general can do this, with 3 steps.

1. Go to Android Market download z4Root (Free)

2. Then Download Android Mate (Free) This allows you to see what's running, and view the actual file path and what the name of the file is when it's in the System Folder. For instance the Twitter App is called "SNS" not Twitter anything.

3. Download Root Explorer ($3.88) This is the actual program that allows you to make your hard drive read/writeable. Obviously you have to click Read/Write in order to actually delete something. You see things in list view and can go straight to the System/Apps folder and select stuff to delete the metro crap and other bloatware.

Make sure you stop the application from running through Android Mate before you attempt to delete in Root Explorer. Otherwise you will have to do a hard shut down. Yeah, BoingoWiFi locked my handset up when I tried to delete it, because it was running in the background.

All in all, it was easy, and I figured it all out on my own given the little tid-bits of info from this thread. I've never done this before, and it was easy and fine. I don't know all the other stuff you can do with a rooted phone. perhaps over time I will learn. But my main goal was to remove the Metro stuff. I'd like to kill the Metro start-up screen someday, and maybe add a few graphical features. But, I'm in no hurry, as I really like this phone. I almost bought an EVO on Black Friday for $99, but I'm glad I didn't. No reason to pay more for phone/data/web services than $50 per month.

 

[MikesTooLz]

Root Explorer was the key to me being able to remove the bloatware yesterday.
It lets you very easily mount the directory with read/write access just buy clicking the Mount R/W button. You can then delete the system apps(bloatware). No need to type any long commands into terminal.

and like ChazzMatt said, Android Mate told me what each apps actualy path and filename was. Some are simple to understand but a few of the metroPCS apps have names that make you think (what where they on when they named the app file something like z4sdf3r32fdf)


So you guys actually ordered the phone? did they not have them in the store? I got two of them at the store, then a friend went to a different metro store on friday and they refused to sell him one, saying that they would only sell the new Optimus to NEW customers.

 

[LifeEscalade]

Now, are there any free apps that are like root explorer that I would be able to use? Or will I have to painstakingly wait another 7 days to be able to remove this bloatware??

 

[ChazzMatt]

So you guys actually ordered the phone? did they not have them in the store? I got two of them at the store, then a friend went to a different metro store on friday and they refused to sell him one, saying that they would only sell the new Optimus to NEW customers.

I ordered two online last Wednesday night (the same day they officially went on sale). The corporate store near me closes at 7pm (store was already closed), and the next day was Thanksgiving (I assumed Metro stores were closed). I had to work Black Friday, so I figured if I waited until AFTER I got off work the supply of these phones at the store might be gone. So, I just ordered online Wednesday night. FedEx tracking says they will be delivered Tuesday (tomorrow) sometime.

 

[jhanley2525]

So what you guys are saying is that theres no need to use sdk or any cmd lines to root a 2.2, or is this process that everyones talking about for removing metro apps not really considered rooting? I had a hero for a week befor this and this is only my second android phone, im just trying to gain some knowledge...

 

[tekmac]

Oh thats good to hear, i hope to get one for christmas.

 

[LifeEscalade]

In reply to jhanley2525, I didnt have to use any cmd lines or anything, and I've had my Optimus M since Wednesday. I asked a friend of mine who had his Incredible rooted the same way with z4root, only he used the permanent root option and it is considered rooting. In the version of z4root I used the temporary root option, opened android mate to find the location of said bloatware, then used root explorer to navigate to the location and delete the .apk (and it .odex if applicable) and it worked like a charm. Already gained roughly 20 to 24 MB of memory back.

 

[droraw23]

i did the temporary root bt my optimus rebooted so it un-rooted and now i cant findthe z4root without the chinese symbols and i really wanna get rid of the bloatware... im new to androids... HELP PLEASE

 

[ChazzMatt]

i did the temporary root bt my optimus rebooted so it un-rooted and now i cant findthe z4root without the chinese symbols and i really wanna get rid of the bloatware... im new to androids... HELP PLEASE

Further up this page is a link to the developer's website, where you can get it directly:

Thanx for the reply Mike!!


Just reading some things on the inter-web, it seems that z4root from the market with "Chinese" writing may in fact be malware...

You can get the app form the XDA site directly.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833953

 

[MikesTooLz]

yep, two z4Root apps came up, i did not pick the chinese one.

 

[droraw23]

sorry for asking so many questions but do i download it directly frommy phone or is there a certain method to get the app?

 

[droraw23]

nevermind i found the app in the market without thew chinese letters thanks tho guys

 

[bvr127]

Thank you...did it to mine...also added setCPU and phone is running like a champ. no lag at all, battery running great. just need a custom rom to get this baby where i want it to be. did a test with quadrant got about 459 to 467. dont know if thats good. but w/e. as per the results its better then a droid, htc variant and some other thing. right below the nexus

 

[focused313]

do you have to get root explorer for this to work? and can you use another free app?

 

[edgchacon]

I dont want to advocate piracy..but I am sure if you look hard enough(i.e google it) you can find it for free. But the 3 or 4 bucks is well worth it.

 

[ChazzMatt]

The two phones (and accessories pack) I ordered last Wednesday were delivered by FedEx last night. Haven't even had time to activate them online. I have a work deadline in two days. I can't spend hours (right now) playing with a new toy. But this weekend....

 

[danyvw]

Bought LG Optimus M in a MetroPCS store last monday ($229) yesterday saw this post and did everything as MikesTooLz said. Download z4Root and intalled, download Root Explorer and installed. Got rid of all Metro Bloatware in less than 3 minutes. Hard thing is to find Metro apps names but just click in every app and press install and you will get a menu showing the app name, click cancel and return to previous menu to continue finding the ones you want to remove, when you got it move it to sdcard. Great work MikesTooLz!