Samsung Galaxy S2.. to root or not to root

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radeon962

[H]ard|Gawd
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If the SGS2 is indeed going to get an update to ICS in the near future (near future being a relative term not knowing when) does rooting the phone and then flashing to a custom ROM make sense?

The phone is fast as-is and for now does what I want, so what would rooting at a minimum give me over the stock experience? I have been reading lots over at XDA, AP, etc. and there are obviously benefits to rooting to allow removing some of the stock AT&T apps, control over the CPU, etc.

For those that have used their SGS2 for longer periods, did you root the phone and why? Beyond that are you using a custom ROM, which one and why?

Thanks, Bill
 
radeon962 said:
If the SGS2 is indeed going to get an update to ICS in the near future (near future being a relative term not knowing when) does rooting the phone and then flashing to a custom ROM make sense?

The phone is fast as-is and for now does what I want, so what would rooting at a minimum give me over the stock experience? I have been reading lots over at XDA, AP, etc. and there are obviously benefits to rooting to allow removing some of the stock AT&T apps, control over the CPU, etc.

For those that have used their SGS2 for longer periods, did you root the phone and why? Beyond that are you using a custom ROM, which one and why?

Thanks, Bill
Click to expand...
Yes I rooted, No I didn't do much with it, no I haven't re rommed.

I flashed a different kernel however.
 
No reason not to root. Custom ROMs however is a larger decision. If you're happy with the way it works, just root to extend the current functionality without wholesale changing it.
 
I rooted my S2, installed a ROM.... and tbh, I'm going back to stock.

This is the only phone I've ever used that has had a stock experience so good that ROMs do worse.... and that's coming from a guy who skins his ROMs (So you would think I would want to keep that...)
 
I root soley to freeze the ATT network management app for free hotspot with unlimited data.
 
radeon962 said:
Tell me more about this... are you talking about tethering, essentially, with unlimited data?
Click to expand...

On the stock Rom rooted, using titanium backup to block the app that requests authorization from att to use hotspot. There are other ways to do this however.

Im currently running Unnamed on my att sg2. Works fine with no issue.
 
Does this phone have CIQ? That would be one big reason to root. Also to run apps like MyBackup root (free version of MyBackup Pro), SetCpu (although I'm not sure the phone needs it) etc.

And when ICS comes, you could unroot it, but I'm sure there will be ICS rom's out very soon.
 
Root it.

Don't know if you'd even need a custom AOSP ROM for it though... a lot of features implemented in later Android versions are squeezed in here by Samsung. Stuff like Javascript performance in the browser are faster than any of its other dual core brethren.
 
Riddlinkidstoner said:
On the stock Rom rooted, using titanium backup to block the app that requests authorization from att to use hotspot. There are other ways to do this however.

Im currently running Unnamed on my att sg2. Works fine with no issue.
Click to expand...

Could you elaborate on the att hotspot thing?
 
ChwyNiblet said:
Yeah root CM7, you'll never go back.
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Why are you and others giving him bad advice? Atleast state the fact that he will lose the GPU accelerated browser if he roots CM7. Not saying CM7 isnt a good ROM but some people use the browser alot and the difference is noticeable.
 
FerraraZ said:
Why are you and others giving him bad advice? Atleast state the fact that he will lose the GPU accelerated browser if he roots CM7. Not saying CM7 isnt a good ROM but some people use the browser alot and the difference is noticeable.
Click to expand...

Honestly, the difference is minor and the overall system performance increase by CM7 is worth it.

It's really not bad advice at all. CM7 is simply a great, slim and powerful ROM with a lot of great extras built in, including great custom theme support. Another good option is MIUI; it's even more customizable though I'm not personally a fan.

For those who choose NOT to go with CM7 or MIUI, I highly suggest that you get your ROMs via the device-specific XDA Developers forum, and only from authors that have "Recognized Developer" under their avatar. There are far too many "Copy-Paste" chefs out there that don't have a whole lot of idea of what they're doing. Very frequently they're just taking half-baked or beta ROMs from someone else, putting a theme on them, and dumping them onto the forum as their own work.

I spend a lot of time on XDA and I know a bunch of devs / chefs and it's amazing the vast difference in knowledge between some of them. I've seen chefs drop code into their ROM that they don't really know what it does nor do they provide credit to the original coder. I've seen a chef claim performance enhancements by demonstrating huge Quadrant benchmark numbers, become insanely popular and get tons of donations, and then have revealed by real developers that the "performance enhancement" is actually just a ramdisk hack that artificially inflates benchmark scores in Quadrant.

The sad thing is that even after the developers proved this, people kept downloading the crappy ROM and dealing with all the force closes and fake tweaks just so that they could brag about their hacked benchmark scores.

This is why I'd just rather stick with something like CM7 or MIUI that has a bunch of experienced people working on it. That said, I just removed an unstable beta CM7 ROM (it's not officially supported by the CM team yet and needs a bit more time in the oven) and flashed back to a leaked Gingerbread beta ROM that a couple of excellent devs have basically made rock-solid stable (partly due to a very-well crafted kernel) and packed with features. A good ROM developer can make you love your phone!

EDIT - For the record, I'm using a Samsung Epic 4G, Galaxy S phone.
 
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I have to disagree and the Galaxy S2 IS my phone. We could go back and forth about what we prefer as far as ROM but the GPU acceleration makes scrolling and flash work great. Maybe when CM gets ICS I can see putting a new ROM but as of right now, pertaining to ONLY the SG2 phone, its not worthwhile.

Electrofreak said:
Honestly, the difference is minor and the overall system performance increase by CM7 is worth it.

It's really not bad advice at all. CM7 is simply a great, slim and powerful ROM with a lot of great extras built in, including great custom theme support. Another good option is MIUI; it's even more customizable though I'm not personally a fan.

For those who choose NOT to go with CM7 or MIUI, I highly suggest that you get your ROMs via the device-specific XDA Developers forum, and only from authors that have "Recognized Developer" under their avatar. There are far too many "Copy-Paste" chefs out there that don't have a whole lot of idea of what they're doing. Very frequently they're just taking half-baked or beta ROMs from someone else, putting a theme on them, and dumping them onto the forum as their own work.

I spend a lot of time on XDA and I know a bunch of devs / chefs and it's amazing the vast difference in knowledge between some of them. I've seen chefs drop code into their ROM that they don't really know what it does nor do they provide credit to the original coder. I've seen a chef claim performance enhancements by demonstrating huge Quadrant benchmark numbers, become insanely popular and get tons of donations, and then have revealed by real developers that the "performance enhancement" is actually just a ramdisk hack that artificially inflates benchmark scores in Quadrant.

The sad thing is that even after the developers proved this, people kept downloading the crappy ROM and dealing with all the force closes and fake tweaks just so that they could brag about their hacked benchmark scores.

This is why I'd just rather stick with something like CM7 or MIUI that has a bunch of experienced people working on it. That said, I just removed an unstable beta CM7 ROM (it's not officially supported by the CM team yet and needs a bit more time in the oven) and flashed back to a leaked Gingerbread beta ROM that a couple of excellent devs have basically made rock-solid stable (partly due to a very-well crafted kernel) and packed with features. A good ROM developer can make you love your phone!

EDIT - For the record, I'm using a Samsung Epic 4G, Galaxy S phone.
Click to expand...
 
FerraraZ said:
I have to disagree and the Galaxy S2 IS my phone. We could go back and forth about what we prefer as far as ROM but the GPU acceleration makes scrolling and flash work great. Maybe when CM gets ICS I can see putting a new ROM but as of right now, pertaining to ONLY the SG2 phone, its not worthwhile.
Click to expand...

To each his own, but I've played with an Epic Touch (SGS2) and while it was very snappy, I would trade a little bit of that for what CM7 has to offer.
 
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