Still new to android and have some ?

[R.Shaw]

I was a long time Apple user and could do about all that could be done with them but I know squat about a droid. So I have a few questions for all the pros here.
1. What is the benefit to rooting my phone?
2. What is this Gingerbread/Icecreamsandwich I keep reading about?
3. I downloaded a pic to my sd card but I don't know how to get if off the card now?

Thanks for any help with these question. Ryon Shaw

 

[jpcalhoun]

I was a long time Apple user and could do about all that could be done with them but I know squat about a droid. So I have a few questions for all the pros here.
1. What is the benefit to rooting my phone?
2. What is this Gingerbread/Icecreamsandwich I keep reading about?
3. I downloaded a pic to my sd card but I don't know how to get if off the card now?

Thanks for any help with these question. Ryon Shaw

Let me see if I can help:
--Rooting-the benefit, or lack there of, is depends on you. I rooted my first Android phone and found after a couple of weeks that it really severed no purpose...but that was me. I found no apps that would run on a rooted phone that I wanted and at the time there was no ROMs available. There are disadvantages-if you don't know what you're doing you can brick your phone or you can make it so that you can't get the manufacture's OTA updates. When memory was at a premium it was nice to be able to move apps that you didn't use off the phone onto your sd card. But, with the new phones memory is abundant, so there really isn't a need to do that anymore. You can "freeze" apps so that they will not start when your phone boots up. But again, if you don't understand what you're doing you can brick your phone and root voids your warranty if you're unable to unroot your phone. There is a lot of good articles about root, advantages and disadvantages. I suggest reading some and then decide what you want to do. It isn't for everybody and like I said...I tried it and didn't find any advantage...didn't float my boat. Rooting the Razr is a pretty simple process. Go the the Hacks section next door and there are a couple of threads that give you a link for the pc software you'll need and the instructions. The problem, the last time I checked, is that unrooting the Razr is not as straight forward, but that was a couple weeks ago and unrooting may have been simplified.

--Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich are operating systems for the Android phone. There have been three now...well four if you count Honeycomb, but that is for tablets. Gingerbread is the most common, but Ice Cream sandwich is the latest and will start to be sent to most phones over the next couple months. With each new OS comes new functionality and new features plus better battery management and memory management...a more sophisticated operating system if you will.

--To get a pic off your card, use the files app that came with your phone or a 3rd party app like Astro (highly recommended)...find the pic and select it to delete. Or open your gallery, find the pic, press the lower portion of your screen or select menu button and then select delete.

 

[R.Shaw]

That was a big help. I do I know what OS I have GB/ICS? I knew I came to the right place. Thanks again!

 

[jpcalhoun]

That was a big help. I do I know what OS I have GB/ICS? I knew I came to the right place. Thanks again!

If you have a Razr then you have gingerbread. We'll be one of the first phones to get Ice Cream Sandwich...in a couple of months. I should explain a little more about root. If you like to tinker with things, and do a little research about root, you may be interested. You can switch out ROMs (when new ROMs become available). A ROM is basically the GUI (graphical user interface) between you and the operating system. Each manufacture puts their own ROM on their phones. Moto is Blur, HTC is call Sense and I forget what the others are called. A custom ROM, if done right, generally will use less battery, operate smoother and gets you closer to a pure Android experience...ie...not manufacturer GUI. The other things you can do in root is tinker with the internal settings that you can't get to if you are not rooted...like setting CPU speed to a lower setting when your phone is idle thus saving battery. I just didn't find a need to do all that. Ask all the questions you'd like. This is a great forum with some real knowledgeable members that are more than willing to help. Hey...we all started as noobs at the first.

 

[cereal killer]

Gingerbread...welcome aboard too

 

[Dweib]

I'm confused. Why do you call it a ROM? If it's just a GUI? Is that a misnomer? ROM: read only memory. In a PC we adjust CPU clock speeds, etc. in the BIOS/CMOS setup pages. This info is kept alive in the ROM chip. And there are periodic updates to controlling software that resides there. So here in the forums when someone is talking about changing or custom ROM are you talking about changes to the BIOS? Or the underlying OS?
With a PC we just hit F2 on boot up and were in the bios setup pages. So what your apparently saying is we can't just do that with a smartphone, we have to "root" it first. Right? Why is called "root"?

Thank you sorry this was wordy. Just an old PC guy.
,

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

I'm confused. Why do you call it a ROM? If it's just a GUI? Is that a misnomer? ROM: read only memory. In a PC we adjust CPU clock speeds, etc. in the BIOS/CMOS setup pages. This info is kept alive in the ROM chip. And there are periodic updates to controlling software that resides there. So here in the forums when someone is talking about changing or custom ROM are you talking about changes to the BIOS? Or the underlying OS?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

Calling it a ROM is a bit of a misnomer, but it comes from the fact that you are flashing your ROM with new code. So the standard is to call each ROM code a ROM.

 

[Dweib]

Sounds like a custom BIOS to me.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

 

[Dweib]

So there's no bios setup page where you just make your changes, hit F10 and reboot?

Looks like I have to get educated. Hope you guys are willing to teach.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

 

[jpcalhoun]

I'm confused. Why do you call it a ROM? If it's just a GUI? Is that a misnomer? ROM: read only memory. In a PC we adjust CPU clock speeds, etc. in the BIOS/CMOS setup pages. This info is kept alive in the ROM chip. And there are periodic updates to controlling software that resides there. So here in the forums when someone is talking about changing or custom ROM are you talking about changes to the BIOS? Or the underlying OS?
With a PC we just hit F2 on boot up and were in the bios setup pages. So what your apparently saying is we can't just do that with a smartphone, we have to "root" it first. Right? Why is called "root"?

Thank you sorry this was wordy. Just an old PC guy.
,

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

ROM still means read only memory, but in the world of Android (and other cell phone OSs) it is memory that you cannot write to without root. When you "flash" a new ROM you're literally rewriting the ROM that make your phone look and behave the way it does. Hey man...I'm an old PC guy too...I understand the confusion.

 

[Dweib]

So "root" is like your rooting around in the firmware? Right? Or basically gaining access to the system BIOS setup pages. Correct?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

 

[jpcalhoun]

So "root" is like your rooting around in the firmware? Right? Or basically gaining access to the system BIOS setup pages. Correct?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.

 

[FoxKat]

So "root" is like your rooting around in the firmware? Right? Or basically gaining access to the system BIOS setup pages. Correct?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

Actually Root originally came from having access to the Root directory or better said, direct access to the flash memory where the Operating System is stored (from PC talk, it would be similar but not identical to looking at the boot sector). Having Root access means we can access and change files stored at the root of the ROM, not just "BIOS" settings, but even complete re-flashing of the Operating System ROM (not just the portion of the manufacturer's overlay as implied earlier). In other words, with Root access, someone could theoretically flash a completely different OS onto the phone. Root access also gives you Superuser rights, allowing you to make changes to settings not normally accessible via the stock interface (as mentioned before).