I
recently “rooted” my Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-I777 Android phone from
AT&T. I have been hearing for months
about how the new Jelly Bean OS for Android would be officially released for
the GS2, and the date seems to keep getting pushed back. I had previously updated from Gingerbread to
the official Ice Cream Sandwich release when it was put out by AT&T &
Samsung, but I had never tried to install a custom OS before. To me it always seemed like an awfully big
risk. Well, I finally decided to try it,
and found mixed results.
First
of all, let me say that rooting your phone is actually really easy. Anybody who is moderately computer savvy can
complete this task. There are seemingly
endless websites on the internet that explain how to do this. The first time you do it is going to be nerve
racking. But really, as long as you
follow the instructions, you can’t mess it up.
In theory you can always go back to your default OS too. I’ll come back to that point later.
The
first problem with rooting your droid, is deciding which “ROM” to replace your
OS with. There are probably hundreds of
choices for each phone. I tried reading
several review websites to choose the best one for me. Now supposedly these releases will be labeled
stable if they are no longer in development, but I did not find this to be
true. I probably loaded 10 different
ROMs before I found one that worked well for me. I couldn’t find a single Jelly Bean based one
that worked well for my GS2, even though various sites suggested them. The biggest problem I had was getting them to
sync to my Google account.
The
other problem I had was that I was not able to reload my stock OS onto my
phone. I downloaded the file form the
internet and flashed it to my phone via a connection to the PC and software
called Odin. However, once it was done,
the phone would not load past the AT&T welcome flash screen. At that point I knew I was stuck, and if I
didn’t want to buy a new phone, I would have to use a custom OS.
Luckily,
I did find a ROM that worked well for me.
It is called Serendipity 9.4 and it is an ICS based ROM with the
TouchWiz launcher from the GS3. I heard
about it here, and here is a link to the official website. So far if you are reading this and you have
never rooted your phone, you have probably been convinced not to attempt it. I will say that in the end, I am really happy
that I did it. The Serendipity ROM is
faster and more stable than my default ICS from AT&T. I was having a lot of problems with my phone
turning off for no reason. It hasn’t
done that since the switch. Battery life
is noticeably improved, and of course, it doesn’t come with any of the “extra”
software from the manufacturer that cannot be uninstalled.
So, in
the end, I am glad I did it. I was
getting frustrated with my year old GS2 and was ready for something new. I ended up with a better product than I had
before. If you are trying to decide
whether to take the plunge, I would suggest you give yourself enough time to
try out several different products to find the one that works best for your
phone. Good luck.
* Update! * 3/15/13: An unanticipated consequence of rooting the phone is that it can now be used as a mobile hotspot without paying the extra fee required by AT&T. This definitely makes it worth doing!
* Update! * 3/15/13: An unanticipated consequence of rooting the phone is that it can now be used as a mobile hotspot without paying the extra fee required by AT&T. This definitely makes it worth doing!