Root I'm new. Why Root?

[Pants]

Hey all, I'm planning on either getting an X10 or Acer Liquid E and i need your help regarding which phone to get, and if i should root it. I have never heard of rooting until today and i have some questions.

Should i root?
What exactly will rooting my phone do?
What is a ROM for a phone?
If i root the x10, with its social android skin go away and leave me with plain old android?
Will rooting boost performance? because if it does boost performance, than ill go with the sony because it has more horsepower.
Can i Install the latest android with rooting?

I have a lot more questions, but I will spare you all for reading sake and ask as is needed.

Thanks all!

 

[RAND0M1ZER]

Rooting itself does none of those tings, its like having an Administrator account in Windows which will let you install/uninstall applications and make changes to the system.

I personally am waiting until the bootloader is cracked and it is possible to load custom ROMs (froyo). That is where the true added functionality comes in.

 

[Pants]

But according to a bunch of websites, after you root it, you can load custom ROMs...no?

example: Root access achieved on Xperia X10 | Xperia X1

 

[Bexy]

Unfortunately, that was before it was actually rooted. Some joker messing around saying he'd rooted it, there's a follow on link saying it was faked :|. Until it was rooted for real . But no bootloader at the moment for it .

 

[Pants]

Oh, ok. So then it won't be possible to load froyo on it until that happens I'm assuming.

 

[Bexy]

Correct, sorry I must have been in a hurry and forgot to add that to the end. But yeah, thats what it means. No 2.x until the bootloader is cracked and we have access.

 

[RAND0M1ZER]

But according to a bunch of websites, after you root it, you can load custom ROMs...no?

example: Root access achieved on Xperia X10 | Xperia X1

The person who wrote that article is wrong.

Unfortunately, that was before it was actually rooted. Some joker messing around saying he'd rooted it, there's a follow on link saying it was faked :|. Until it was rooted for real . But no bootloader at the moment for it .

It has been 'rooted for real' see here for definition of root.

Example, you may be the Administrator of your Windows computer but that won't do you much good if the BIOS is locked and you want to install a new operating system.

 

[Bexy]

Thats what I said...

Someone faked the root of the X10 and then it was confirmed as being fake a couple days later.
And then, idk, maybe a week, two weeks later, it was rooted for real. - With no bootloader. The faker said he had bootloader access I believe.

So in that respect, it's also not exactly wrong, many many sites had that post up, about it being rooted before it was confirmed as fake. It was the info at the time before it was confirmed as fake. Some sites put an edited note on the page, that site has a follow on post, saying it's fake (Xperia X10 Root access faked | Xperia X1). The source link, is of the same info, as are other sites.
Also, the guys at the SETool Forums were wrong, they said rooting was near impossible. But because the site said that, what they'd said, does that make the site wrong as well?

 

[niles]

hey guys,dont know if this is the right place to ask this but i just have a few questions.

1) I updated my x10 to R2BA023 yesterday, will i still be able to root my x10 using this guide [GUIDE] Root your X10 R2BA023 ! { Update 06.07.2010 Nicer Instructions } - xda-developers

2) Say for instance i do root my phone and the new android 2.x comes out later that week for example, do i have to unroot my x10 in order to load the new android 2.x or can i load the new android 2.x with my rooted x10

3) Say for instance i rooted my phone and i see its not good, some apps not working,
screen going off, etc. Can i unroot my phone to what it was before

Please help i'm a total noob on this

 

[Pants]

To my knowledge:

1) Yes because it downgrades to an earlier version before it roots back to 23

2) You either unroot and update officially, or you wait for a dev to make an update that complies with rooting.

3) Yes, maybe not the same version, but to an earlier version and then you officially update to the current version.

Don't quote me on these, but this is what i understand so far.

 

[niles]

Thanks Pants, cleared up a lot. Also say for instance i am busy rooting my x10 and worst case scenario the power goes off and by that my pc goes off also, then i see my phone is not workng, do i just run the whole rooting process again or is that the end of my phone

 

[Pants]

Worst case scenario, you start again, but you can mostly get away with just redoing the step that the process failed at. I just rooted, and i had a problem similar where i updated from 23 to 24 and something went wrong and the phone would just have a screen with a yellow arrow, and i just redid the last step and it worked.

P. S. When they say only press it once and itll take a couple second, you only press it once or the root wont work...trust me.

 

[niles]

thanks man, i'll most probable root my x10 now, thanks for all the info