To Root or Not to Root

It may not be as important a question as whether or not to off yourself, but many Nexus One owners face the question of rooting and/or unlocking their wonderful new devices. For those of you not in the know, rooting is the process of gaining access to the “protected” aspects of your Nexus One (such as installed programs and access to protected hardware like the trackball lights and the led flash). The only way to gain root access, at least for now, is by “unlocking” the Nexus One…an action that will void your warranty with HTC.

When I first got my Nexus One, I pretty much unlocked and rooted it before it had reached it first full charge. Looking back now, I might have given it some more thought, but I think I probably would have done it anyway. But let’s pretend I just got a new Nexus One…how would the debate go now, after a month of usage?

Pros:
1) Root access to some low level hardware functionality. This is a big one. I love N1 Torch…this is the free app that lets you turn on your LED flash and use it as either a flashlight or a strobe light. The first time I showed this to my iPod Touch loving friend, he literally turned green with envy. The new flashing trackball software is also very cool, but still kind of buggy.

2) Ability to load custom ROMs. This seemed like a very big thing at the time, as the ROMs available allowed for multi-touch before Google released the over-the-air update.

3) Ability to copy applications purchased from The Android Market. (I will leave this one here without comment.)

4) Great back-up software available for free! I will go into this in more detail in a future blog, but let’s just say that the ability to back-up your entire device from one simple process is a huge advantage to unlocking your phone.

Cons:
1) Voided warranty. Can’t state this one enough. I bought my Nexus One without the T-Mobil subsidy, so when I unlocked my device, it was close to a $600 gamble. Luckily, I didn’t have the dust under the screen problem, and everything seems to be going great!

2) No way to re-lock. Right now, and it doesn’t look like it is going to change any time soon, there is no way to re-lock the Nexus One. If you unlock it, the little padlock appears on your boot-up screen and there is nothing you can do to get rid of it.

3) Custom ROMs can cause some system instability. Once you have unlocked and rooted your phone, you will probably not be able to resist installing some of the more bleeding edge features available from the Nexus One development community. While these things will certainly give you more functionality, the cost is sometimes stability…and not everyone is ready for that.

Unlocking and rooting your Nexus One is a very personal decision. Everyone needs to weigh the pros and cons before taking that irreversible step. Only you can decide if it is worth it.

Tagged as: Nexus One, Root, Unlock