Rooting today's flagship phones- but not flashing a new ROM

blueacid · 20 Jun 2014 at 21:48

Evening all,

My Samsung Galaxy S3 is getting a little long in the tooth; looking at an upgrade in the next month or two when my contract comes to an end.

I'm currently running Cyanogenmod 11, which is serving me fine. Two of the features I don't want to lose are the App Ops / Permissions and the ability to run Afwall+. I don't especially like, say, a game which wants internet access and the ability to read my SMS inbox - so I can prevent that happening.

So the question is: with the new phones (LG G3, HTC M8, S5 et al) is it possible to root them but keep the factory ROM? I don't really want to lose the various features these phones might have in their factory ROM (e.g. IR blaster on the G3 or Boomsound on the M8).

Thanks for any help or advice!

Blueacid

kona786 · 20 Jun 2014 at 21:59

Yes you can just root the factory ROM on the new phones.

You can also get custom ROMs based on the stock ROM - the difference is added features and themes.

blueacid · 20 Jun 2014 at 22:20

kona786 said:
Yes you can just root the factory ROM on the new phones.

You can also get custom ROMs based on the stock ROM - the difference is added features and themes.

Excellent, that's great! Hm, now back to trying to decide what upgrade to get.. One M8 or G3, or whether to just stick with the Galaxy S3.

Dilemma.

Jaaay · 21 Jun 2014 at 01:13

Im in the same boat, my S3 is becoming annoyingly slow, takes ages to do simple things, im guessing its because of the poverty amount of RAM.

Personally, im veering towards the G3.

blueacid · 21 Jun 2014 at 01:16

Jay™ said:
Im in the same boat, my S3 is becoming annoyingly slow, takes ages to do simple things, im guessing its because of the poverty amount of RAM.

Personally, im veering towards the G3.

Heh, seems so bizarre doesn't it? My mobile has 1GB of RAM and that's a bit meagre - you'd have been laughed at saying that ten years ago (well, ten years ago I wanted 1GB of RAM in my computer, only had 512!)

As for the G3 I'm not sold; it seems that the screen is a bit dimmer than the 1080p competition, plus the screen can overheat when on full brightness. To me that just doesn't sit right, so I'm leaning a bit more in the direction of the HTC One M8... although not 100% convinced i'm right either!

Lartyconshayo · 21 Jun 2014 at 04:23

What about the oppo 7 or 7a. Come with cm11 as standard. Not sure whether root access standard though

deltalinx · 21 Jun 2014 at 05:28

Yes you can root and keep stock exactly the same. Added options of xposed framework and the modules you can use on there for customisation if you want it

There are plenty of reasons to root and not doing so would you would losing out!

Orcvader · 21 Jun 2014 at 13:11

Lartyconshayo said:
What about the oppo 7 or 7a. Come with cm11 as standard. Not sure whether root access standard though

Pretty sure the Oppo 7 and 7a comes with Color OS as a standard, not CM11. The OnePlus One however does, but doesn't seem to be rooted.

It's pretty easy though, all you need to do is unlock the bootloader, then flash a custom recovery via fastboot, and then flash the superuser zip file and that will root any stock/unrooted ROM.

this_is_gav · 21 Jun 2014 at 16:02

blueacid said:
As for the G3 I'm not sold; it seems that the screen is a bit dimmer than the 1080p competition, plus the screen can overheat when on full brightness. To me that just doesn't sit right, so I'm leaning a bit more in the direction of the HTC One M8... although not 100% convinced i'm right either!

To be fair a lot of phones overheat - my own S3 did when I used as a satnav on a warm day, and they all have their own ways of dealing with it depending on what's overheating. My own just stopped charging, waited until it had cooled down a bit, then started again.

From what I've seen, the G3 doesn't seem to dim much at all when it gets a bit warm, but that ought to vary depending on the climate you're in of course. It wouldn't put me off buying the phone at all as I very, very seldom have any phone at 100% brightness and probably wouldn't notice if it had dimmed anyway... I'm not even sure I've ever put my Nexus 5 on full brightness intentionally - perhaps only by accident!

For me, there are only 3 or 4 phones I'd consider at the moment. The G3 or M8 if I was buying now, or the slightly smaller Nexus 5 or maybe the 'normal'-sized Moto X. For me it would come down to whether I wanted front-facing speakers and GPE ability (M8) or a normal megapixel camera and bigger screen and hope for GPE (G3) and choose based on that.

chris74 · 22 Jun 2014 at 13:12

Just rooted my Z2 last night. Did it whilst being drunk too.
All the DRM keys that enable the Bravia engine and X-reality are kept and backed up.

There is no reason not to and unlike you I hate the intrusive permissions some apps want/require.

blueacid · 22 Jun 2014 at 15:09

chris74 said:
There is no reason not to and unlike you I hate the intrusive permissions some apps want/require.

Oh no, I totally agree with you; if that was unclear in my initial post then sorry.
For the avoidance of doubt I loathe apps which overstep the minimum permissions required to do the job. Swiftkey keyboard can stay out of my texts, a chess game doesn't need access to the GPS or the internet and my web browser can definitely keep its grubby paws off my microphone, camera and phone book.

With Cyanogenmod I can guard against this; I would like to keep this feature but stay on the stock roms of a newer phone. Looks like I can!

j0s · 22 Jun 2014 at 15:13

chris74 said:
Just rooted my Z2 last night. Did it whilst being drunk too.
All the DRM keys that enable the Bravia engine and X-reality are kept and backed up.

There is no reason not to and unlike you I hate the intrusive permissions some apps want/require.

Which Rom did you use?

chris74 · 22 Jun 2014 at 16:58

I have kept it stock. I flashed from a three branded handset with firmware stuck on .055 to the UK generic stock .402 rom and then re-rooted using the excellent EasyRoot

I am now going to work on removing the applications I do not want especially Facebook!.

I don't mind Sony's implementation of Android. If I can remove the unnecessary bloatware and control apps permissions I will be a happy camper.

Jaaay · 22 Jun 2014 at 17:49

blueacid said:
Heh, seems so bizarre doesn't it? My mobile has 1GB of RAM and that's a bit meagre - you'd have been laughed at saying that ten years ago (well, ten years ago I wanted 1GB of RAM in my computer, only had 512!)

As for the G3 I'm not sold; it seems that the screen is a bit dimmer than the 1080p competition, plus the screen can overheat when on full brightness. To me that just doesn't sit right, so I'm leaning a bit more in the direction of the HTC One M8... although not 100% convinced i'm right either!

My S3 struggles with 120-150mb of spare RAM, which isnt really much room, and definitely impacts the usability of the phone.

I like the G3, due to its similar UI to Samsung's touchwiz, and it looks beautiful due to the screen/bezel/brushed metal effect.

The sunlight brightness tests and what not were off putting at first but then i realised, i hardly ever use my phone in direct sunlight or hardly ever outside to be honest, only if im waiting around, and even then i'd be inside/in shade or something. So the screen brightness issues have little impact for me personally.