Root worth root and / or custom ROM if running froyo already?

[wintermute000]

I'm a Nexus One user so already using froyo and of course stoked with it.

Given that the phone is already superfast and tethering works, is there any real benefit to root, and / or custom ROMs?

Previous to froyo the main motivation for custom rom would have been tethering but thats now moot. I am happy with stock android UI and wouldn't bother for just ui tweaks. I am interested however in possibility of getting better battery life, but am leery of losing the comfortable convenience of OTA stock updates. One of the reasons I picked an N1 at the time was that I knew I'd be getting 2.1 and 2.2 before any other model

also side question, when you go custom rom and do a backup before flashing, does restoring the backup literally restore everything (apps, data, settings etc.) completely? i.e. everything remains in exactly the right place, your apps are all 100% intact, gmail/contacts/exchange/sms etc. all there etc.


Interested to hear people's thoughts. Thanks

 

[Frisco]

Hello Wintermute.

The Updates and Cupcakes area is geared more toward firmware releases than rooting.

The forum I've moved your thread to, Nexus One All Things Root, seems a lot more useful as to your questions.

 

[Teknologic]

You might consider some benefits marginal, but there are quite a few! I'll name a few interesting ones, but there's a whole lot more ofc.
First off: Battery life. There are a bunch of custom kernels out for your phone that will change the way it uses and distributes it's power. This can make your phone last longer, as well as speed it up in some areas.
Second: Performance. Rooting your phone opens it up to a bunch of tweaks and settings designed to make your phone behave a lot more how you want it to, when you want it to. There's setCPU, which can also improve your battery life quite a bit using profiles (look it up). There's autokiller which can tweak the way android kills inactive processes to make your phone more responsive when opening new apps. Cachemate to free up cache's with 1 click,.. there's more.
But before I forget: Rooting will instantly free up more RAM as well (as I recall it did for me, and I rooted from froyo). And by simply moving a chache around, you can create a lot more internal storage for your apps (like 60-80 mb, I don't recall exactly).
Furthermore, if you partition your SD card, you could use an alternative way to store your apps on SD, moving the ENTIRE APP there for unlimited appspace AND keep using your apps when you mounted your SD card.
Also, custom ROMs come with nice built-in tweaks and settings you never knew you needed.
I'm running Enomther's TheOfficial Nexus One ROM, it looks exactly like stock, is extremely stable and has nice tweaks. The launcher has settings and is faster, the trackball lights of system apps and installed apps can all be adjusted, trackball lights in succession, using the trackball to wake and/or unlock the phone,... heaps of nifty built-in settings with the exact look and feel of Froyo and all the benefits of root.

Such as backing up all your apps with all their data and market links and all settings and even possibly migrating them to another phone..

I'm litterally just typing out the advantages that pop into my head now.. Search these forums hard and you're bound to find more stuff about rooting you like or that's usefull to you specifically.
But hey, if you're happy with stock you can easily go without rooting, you've never had it's sweet taste so you'll never scream for MOOOAAR!!

 

[noisemonkey]

Setcpu boosts your battery life loads..