Rooting, in and of itself doesn't really do anything to the phone. All it means is that you have 'super user' (SU) privileges. It gives you the ability to completely customize your device from the ground up. This can mean anything from changing the color of the capacitive buttons (home menu search and back) to overclocking custom kernels (the foundation of your phone's operating system or ROM) to increase performance. The other advantage of rooting is the ability to use certain apps that require it. The first question that you need to ask is WHY you want to root. If it's just to customize what you see when you hit the home button, or the lock screen, you don't really need to. Go Launcher, ADW launcher, and Launcher pro are all free and will completely change the look of your home screen and app drawer. If you want to do more, such as use a custom ROM or increase performance, then it may be something to consider. The first thing I would advise is to do a LOT of research. Addictive Tips - Tips to make you smarter! Android & Windows Phone: Tablets, Apps, & ROMs @ xda-developers are two great sites. Start with Addictive tips as they put it more into laymans terms. One other thing to keep in mind. Rooting voids your warranty, for a reason. And, while it's not likely if you follow the instructions of someone who knows what they are doing when you root and put a custom ROM on your phone, bricking is a possibility. If you aren't sure ask BEFORE you do ANYTHING. Hope this helps.

 

If you just want to change the look of your home screen, there are several different launchers and widgets you could try. They require no rooting, and a great many of them are free. Beautiful Widgets is an example of spicing up your home screen.

 

Ok... where are these pictures? Can you contact the person who owns the phone to ask where they got it? If you are talking about background pics for the homescreen, download zedge from the market, there are tons of pics, ringtones, and notification sounds there. All free. If you are talking about complete themes, then rooting may be the way to go. But (and I'm not trying to put you off of rooting. I'm rooted, and I'll never go back to stock), if the sole reason for you wanting to root is to customize your backgrounds and what not, just download wall paper until you do your research.

 

How about removing all that useless bloat-ware that VZW installs and you can't delete?

 

Now, that would require root. the easiest way to deal with that is find a good stable rom that has all that crap already gone. You can, once you have root, go in and manually delete them. But, it's not as easy as simply clicking delete in application management. Those are considered 'system apps', and you have to get into your /system/sbin /system/xbin /system/apps and a couple of other places to truly rid yourself of them. Then you have to be careful you aren't deleting an xml file or something that another app uses as well because you might break it. If you know what you are doing, it's not too hard, though it requires attention to detail. But, again, the easiest way is to let someone else do the work, and then flash their rom.