Give Your Android More Power Root It

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS ADVICE AND INFORMATION THAT COULD SCREW UP YOUR MOBILE DEVICE OR VOID YOUR WARRANTY. YOU SHOULD NOT TRY THIS UNLESS YOURE WILLING TO TAKE THE RISK, AND YOU HAVE DILIGENTLY EDUCATED YOURSELF ON THE PROCESS.

If youre an Android Superuser, you already know about some of the benefits of rooting your mobile device. However, for casual users, you may not know that you can gain some advantages by rooting your device.

What is rooting?

Rooting is this process of modifying your phones operating system to allow you complete access. The open source concept of Android OS means that Google wants you to be able to hack your device and customize it to your liking.

What are some benefits of rooting?

You can gain a lot of benefits by rooting your device. Perhaps first and foremost is the ability to customize your phone in such a way that you remove some of those annoying applications pre-installed by your carrier.

Rooting gives you the ability to back up your system onto an SD card. One of the popular applications in the Android Market is Rom Manager. With this application you can make backups, flash ROMs, and a variety of other techie things, you couldnt do otherwise.

With a rooted phone, you can run special applications. Perhaps my two favorite special applications are Auto Memory Manager, and Startup Manager.

How do I brick root my phone?

There are an number of methods for rooting your phone. However, remember if you root your phone, you run the risk of bricking or creating at $500 paperweight. In other words, use caution.

Perhaps the easiest way to root your phone is to use a program called, SuperOneClick. This software runs from your computer, and simply roots your phone without the hassle of using the recovery manager.

You can find the more complex method for rooting your phone by searching Google for YOURDEVICE root. Trust me, its already done (see this guide for rooting the Motorola Xoom release February 24).

Yahoo! has this post about rooting, which I found interesting. You may want to check it out. Also, check out this post by Android Police, which lists their top 5 benefits to rooting.

Remember, before starting any root project, gather as much information as possible. Know that after you root your device, you will no longer be eligible to receive any of your carriers over-the-air updates for your particular OS. This isnt necessarily a bad thing, since most Superusers run systems which are ahead of their carriers.

Photo: p_kirn via Flickr