Legit Reviews

Anyone here running an Android OS phone and have it rooted? I ran across a "simple" app to root my EVO 4G but I want to clarify a few things before I even try it.
1) If I root my phone will I still receive updates from HTC?
2) If I root my phone will I still receive updates from Sprint?
3) If I root my phone will I be able to use Sprint's apps? Specifically, will I be able to use Sprint's Navigation?

The main reason I want to root my phone is to be able to uninstall craptastic apps that I will never use. One of them being Amazon MP3. Even though I have never turned this app on it persists on running in the background when I start my phone. Then randomly it decides to run in the background. This is one of a handful of apps that does that and annoys me. Unlike the Sprint Samsung Epic 4G (16GB) or the Verizon Motorola Droid X (16GB) the HTC EVO 4G only has 512MB of onboard storage.

My second reason to root the phone is to add a restart app. Roughly every 3 days my phone gets all catawampus and decides to skip getting text messages and new emails. Be nice to have a button to press and the phone reboots.

*UPDATE*
I went for it, and it worked. I still don't know if HTC and Sprint update will work though. On the bright side I was able to uinstall Amazon MP3, Blockbuster and a game called Nova that were all previously locked. Now I'm trying to figure out how to adjust what starts with the phone so other crap doesn't start in their place.

A lot of users (myself included) root their phones so they can use custom ROMs. I'm running a nightly build of CyanogenMOD 7. Even though Motorola will never release a build of Gingerbread for the OG Droid, the community has released a few Gingerbread ports so far. There is an app called ROM Manager on the market, it is VERY useful and lets you flash a recovery on your phone plus it gives you access to lots of ROM's for your particular phone. Clockwork Recovery is where the magic happens. From there you can install all kinds of OS level tweaks and mods (Themes, OC kernels, Keyboards, etc). The best part is that it's all reversible so in most cases it won't void your warranty :D (or they at least won't be able to tell)

I'm running:
CyanogenMOD 7 Nightly #41
Chevy No1 ULV 1.2ghz Kernel (up from the original 600mhz!)
Stock Gingerbread Launcher

It really is amazing what the mod community has done with Android. You just have to poke around a bit :D

Thanks for the info. I ran revoked, so I had no hands on learning the root process. Which is probably a good thing. I saw that when the program was flashing the phone (I guess that's what it's called) it was using Clockwork Recovery. This is all a learning process and right now I'm messing with ROOT REQ apps in the market.

It's definitely one of those things worth learning. Messing with custom ROM's is great fun!

I have a EVO also and was wonding how to get rid of those apps Amazon MP3, Blockbuster, Nova - what are you doing when you "root" your phone? I dont want t omess anythign up but I am sick of being tied to the charger.

To my understanding it goes like this...
Rooting the phone just means that you are unlocking it so you can have full control over it. Think of it as getting rid of DRM so you have an open product.

With the app unrevoked I was able to unlock the phone, get rid of the stupid apps, disable a bunch of other stuff I don't want, and was able to run ad blocks with the hosts file. I know that people unlock their phones for other reasons but I am perfectly happy with what I've accomplished so far.

So far I've uninstalled...
Amazon MP3
Blockbuster
Nova
Sprint Football
Sprit NASCAR
HTC Facebook, Picasa, Twitter, and some other socialist networking apps.

Using another app I disabled a bunch of other stuff including...
Footprints
News Reader
HTC Stocks

The best way to save your battery is to turn off radios you aren't using. Unless you need GPS turn it off. Unless you are connected to a Wifi signal turn off the radio. You get the point. HTC has widgets you can put on the device to turn all this off.

I want to root my Droid Eris so I can get android 2.2 or even 3.0 on it along with overclocking and apps2sd. I just have been intimidated by the backing up and installing other roms stuff.

One problem with the rom stuff is that there are WAY too many of them. Kind of like Linux distros. I think everyone wants to make a special version that does this one thing better than another one rather than just improving the original.

KnightRid wrote:One problem with the rom stuff is that there are WAY too many of them. Kind of like Linux distros.

In the little searching I've done I see what you are saying. I'll have to research each ROM before I start installing them.

Yeah there are a ton of options out there. I came from a beat up iPhone 2g hand me down though so I LOVE the fact that there can even be so many options haha

What app are you using to overclock your phone's processor HONkUS?

CyanogenMOD 7 has the feature built in. You just have to change kernels and then you can set clocks and governors under the normal settings menu.

Ok, with that being said... If I flash the mod you said will I lose all my settings and shortcuts?

Yes, you need to wipe everything. It can all be done through clockwork. One of the beauties of Android is that all your contacts and apps are stored on your Google account so once you login the first time it will re-download all your apps and restore your contacts automatically. Assuming you chose to sync them to begin with.

I am usually a pretty daring type - but I am just to scared I would brick my phone.

Plug in the phone, double click the unrevoked executable, let it do it's thing. Pretty painless.

lol, ok that sounds pretty painless.

For it to work you need to uninstall HTC Sync and have your phone set to Debugging Mode. I believe that setting is in the Connection settings.
http://unrevoked.com/#evo
Only download and run the unrevoked3 app. The other one is more involved.