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Pros and cons of rooting your Bionic

Here's the twist - Because it has a locked bootloader, all you can get at this time is a custom ROM and recovery. This is not a problem for a lot of people, as they don't need (yet) an overclocking kernel for a phone that's pretty damned fast.

However, Verizon is planning to release an OTA late October/early November timeframe. One of the features in this update is supposed to be better 3G/4G handoffs. That's not the ROM, that's the baseband, and with a locked bootloader, I don't think you're gonna be able to get that once rooted.

So, if you want to root now AND get this baseband update in the OTA (among other fixes), you'll need to:
  1. Root and set up your phone the way you want now
  2. When the OTA arrives,
    1. Restore your phone back to its original condition and unroot
    2. Apply the OTA
    3. (possibly) Wait for workarounds to the probable patching of the exploit that allowed you to root in the first place
    4. Re-root and set up again
As for me, I'm starting this after the OTA arrives and any patches to the root exploit are available - I know that's a risk, but I'd rather have good network handoffs than reduced bloat or additional ROM features (for now, anyway!).
 
rck76 said:
I have a question. I'm new to bionic and I see there is not very many roms yet. Anything with a rotary lockscreen or drop down power widget? I tried widgetsoid but it's not the same.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums
Click to expand...

Th3ory Rom now has toggles in the notification pull down if that is what you mean. At the moment it is not customizable though. It includes wifi, bluetooth, gps, ring/vibrate, auto rotate. I have not seen a rotary dial yet that I am aware of.
 
wseyller said:
Th3ory Rom now has toggles in the notification pull down if that is what you mean. At the moment it is not customizable though. It includes wifi, bluetooth, gps, ring/vibrate, auto rotate. I have not seen a rotary dial yet that I am aware of.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. Is there a liberty rom for the bionic?

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums
 
Rooting on my mind; waiting till the update to fix the 3G/4G connection issues though. For me that's priority 1. Went out for dinner last night and couldn't get a connection till I rebooted the phone. That's a load of BS. Oh well, I love everything else about the Bionic.
 
DessoThumbs said:
Rooting on my mind; waiting till the update to fix the 3G/4G connection issues though. For me that's priority 1. Went out for dinner last night and couldn't get a connection till I rebooted the phone. That's a load of BS. Oh well, I love everything else about the Bionic.
Click to expand...

Good thing about rooting and using the custom roms is that the devs will apply any new updates into their roms. If it is a modem update then it would be available to simply flash the modem.
 
wseyller said:
Good thing about rooting and using the custom roms is that the devs will apply any new updates into their roms. If it is a modem update then it would be available to simply flash the modem.
Click to expand...

I don't believe that independent baseband updates are possible on a locked phone, like the Bionic, yet. Rooting will not unlock the modem firmware.

You're correct that devs will incorporate new rom features into their own, but the basebands are separate. You could extract and publish a new baseband for the OG Droid because it was unlocked. I don't believe that's the case on the Bionic, so if you want an new baseband you either need to wait for devs to unlock that, or take the OTA and lose root along the way.
 
scdown said:
I don't believe that independent baseband updates are possible on a locked phone, like the Bionic, yet. Rooting will not unlock the modem firmware.

You're correct that devs will incorporate new rom features into their own, but the basebands are separate. You could extract and publish a new baseband for the OG Droid because it was unlocked. I don't believe that's the case on the Bionic, so if you want an new baseband you either need to wait for devs to unlock that, or take the OTA and lose root along the way.
Click to expand...

You could flash an official motorola baseband update with RSDlite just like the one that is out now which is the original stock baseband.
 
I never tried that one but might. Thanks

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jruelas said:
Hello all. I recently got the Bionic. Its an amazing upgrade from the Eris I had before. Now the question is should I root or not? I have heard mixed reviews and wanted to weight the pros and cons with other Bionic users. Thanks for your honest input.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums
Click to expand...
like you i came from the eris. it was rooted running xtrrom 4.6.5 and it needed to be rooted, it ran so much better rooted. but with the bionic, it's already such a beast and i love how it runs now so i'm not gonna root at this time. the only thing i can see that would benefit me is the ability to remove some of the bloat and the ability to install adfree. that's just not enough reason to justify rooting for me. in the end, it's all personal preference, just about as much as which phone is the best, the one you like best is always the one that's best for you.
 
For me, the biggest reason I rooted my OG Droid was for tethering my droid to my iTouch and laptop when needed. It sounds like there may be issues with the tethering with VZ trying to crack down on people tethering w/o paying for it. As others have mentioned, rooting also allows you to load customer roms, themes, and other items to truly make the phone however you want it. As long as you make sure to make a backup whenever you do anything, you should be fine and issue free.
 
DessoThumbs said:
Rooting on my mind; waiting till the update to fix the 3G/4G connection issues though. For me that's priority 1. Went out for dinner last night and couldn't get a connection till I rebooted the phone. That's a load of BS. Oh well, I love everything else about the Bionic.
Click to expand...

Instead of rebooting when this happens; toggle airplane mode on then off. A lot quicker than rebooting

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