6 benefits of rooting your Android phone or tablet

Most of you are probably familiar with the concept of rooting, the process of allowing Android smartphone and tablet owners to attain privileged control over the operating system. If not, you should definitely check out our beginners guide to rooting for some background information and tips of getting started with rooting. But even if you’re in the knowledge, the reasons to root may seem few and far between at first, and the tradeoff with voiding your warranty is a legitimate concern. Nevertheless, here are my top reasons to root your device, all of which can drastically improve your Android experience.

1- Put your handset on a diet

The first benefit of accessing administrator privileges over Android is full control over the applications installed on your handset. No longer do you have to suffer from the cluttered app drawers and reduced memory space taken up by pre-installed carrier and manufacturer applications, you can instantly cut the bloatware and keep only the apps that you really want.

Even if you’re up to date with Android 4.1 or above, which grants users the ability to disable these pre-installed apps if you don’t want to see or use them, you can’t permanently remove them, they’re still there eating up your memory space. Rooting is the only way to permanently get rid of these pesky apps, but please don’t uninstall something crucial or your handset may stop working properly. Apps like Titanium Backup are particularly helpful for organising and culling this bloatware.

2- Better backups

This brings me nicely on to the next major benefit of Android, improved backup and restore options. As already mentioned, Titanium Backup is one of the most popular backup apps used by rooters, and this, or a similar app, is essential if you’re going to start tinkering around with Android software. But as well as acting as a safety net in case you uninstall something important, Titanium Backup can also be used to backup your user data, from SMS messages to browser bookmarks.

ClockworkMod Recovery offers superior protection against faulty updates and bricking your handset.

Even better still, once rooted you can create complete backups of your entire handset using the ClockworkMod Recovery option, providing you with extra protecting in case of a major malfunction. Recovery can only be accessed before booting into Android, but it provides additional backup options in case, for whatever reason, Android fails to boot properly or experiences a crippling error. This makes ClockworkMod Recovery an essential tool for those looking to install custom versions of Android.

3- Keep up to date with the latest version of Android

Once you’re fully backed up you’re ready to move up to one of the other major perks of rooting, installing different versions of Android.

We all know that manufacturers are often pretty slow at delivering the latest Android offerings even to their flagship handsets, let alone aging devices. So if you’re not a Nexus or Play Edition device owner, rooting opens the door to much faster Android updates, thanks to the developers who put time into porting the latest updates to various handsets.

Pretty much every semi-popular handset has a decent following of developers working on porting the latest versions of Android to their handsets, most of which can be found over on the XDA Forum. The only sacrifice here is that you won’t receive official manufacturer versions of Android, so no updated Touchwizz or Sense5 features, but if we were really too worried about that we probably wouldn’t be rooting  in the first place.

4- Custom ROMs galore

If stock Android isn’t your thing, there are also tons of other customized ROMs offering unique features and improvements to the default Android experience.

AOSP has given us so many custom ROM’s, and has extended the lifespan of many an Android handset.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the biggest names, CyanogenMod, Paranoid Android, MIUI to name just a few of the most popular ones. Many custom ROMs are actually at the forefront of innovation on Android, offering several features that aren’t available anywhere else. Paranoid Android’s Halo feature or OmniROM’s multi-workspace mode are just a couple of examples.

But as well as these big third party developments, you’ll also find a lot of smaller developers tweaking away at the core Android experience, offering ROMs with vastly superior battery life or overclocked processor speeds. Not to mention that most custom ROMs are updated to the latest version of Android very quickly too, bringing you the best of both worlds.

5- Administrator privileged apps

As rooting opens up administrator type privileges on your handset you’ll instantly have access to all the core files on your handset. File browser apps can take full advantage of this, allowing you to move stuff around on your internal memory if so require.

App wise, we’ve already touched on Titanium Backup, but there are far more apps that can make use of root permissions, and simply aren’t available with a non-rooted device. The speed junkies among you could take advantage of overclocking software to boost performance or save on battery life, providing that your Kernel supports overclocking. Alternatively, fans of custom ROMs can use a ROM manager to install and update their operating system without the need to flash zip files from Recovery.

Rooting is sometimes criticized for compromising handset security, but security apps, such as Cerberus, use root functions to bury themselves deep down into the operating system, making them hard for would be thieves to remove. These apps can also be granted permissions that aren’t available on unrooted devices, such as access to GPS data even when the device is locked.

There’s also additional gesture apps, data syncing software, and even theme managers to customize the look of your handset.

6- Dress to impress

My final reason for rooting your handset is the wider range of customization and theming options, after all who doesn’t want their desktop to look pretty.

Looking good there Android.

Although there are options to tweak themes and whatnot that don’t require rooting, usually through third part launchers such as ADW, rooting gives you access to the important files needed to make changes in folders that are usually hidden from users. Access to the /system/fonts folder allows users to install and replace custom fonts. You can also flash zip files from Recovery to install themes too. But if all that folder browsing isn’t for you, there are also a few root only theme applications to choose from.

One example is Theme Chooser, included by default as part of CyanogenMod, which has plenty of custom themes available, and even works with ADW themes too. Alternatively, the XThemeEngineworks with all rooted handsets, allowing you to pick between themes after installing them from traditional apk files, so there’s no need to flashing zip files or tinkering in system folders.

MediaTek MT6592 unveiled as "world's first true octa-core" mobile processor

MediaTek has launched the MT6592 chipset, which it has been claiming is the world's first true octa-core mobile processor. MediaTek expects the new chipset to be available in devices running Android Jelly Bean by the end of this year, while Android KitKat-based smartphones powered with MT6592 are likely to be released in early 2014.
As per the company, the MT6592 is a heterogeneous computing SOC which comes with scalable multi-core processing for advanced multi-tasking. The MT6592 chipset is built on the 28nm HPM (high-performance process) and includes eight CPU cores, each capable of clock speeds up to 2GHz. MediaTek says the MT6592 chipset can run both low-power consuming and more demanding tasks equally well, by attaching the full capabilities of all eight-cores in any combination. Further, the new chipset comes with an advanced scheduling algorithm that monitors the temperature and power consumption to ensure optimal performance of the smartphone at all times.
The MT6592 features an advanced video playback system supporting Ultra HD 4Kx2K H.264 video playback, and support for new video codecs such as H.265 and VP9. It also supports a 16-megapixel camera and a full-HD display. Some of the other new additions in the MT6592 include full connectivity capability for dual-band 801.11n Wi-Fi, Miracast screen-sharing as well as Bluetooth, GPS and an FM tuner.
In addition, Intex showcased its first true octa-core smartphone prototype at an event on Wednesday. The company announced that the still-to-be-named smartphone powered by the MT6592 chipset will be launched in January 2014 and can be expected to be priced around Rs. 20,000 in India.
Intex also revealed the specifications of the smartphone, which includes a octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processer clocked at 1.7GHz, coupled with 700 MHz Mali 450-MP4 GPU. Other specifications included a 6-inch HD IPS LCD display; 2GB of RAM; 16GB and 32GB inbuilt storage variants. The smartphone is likely to run Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean or 4.4 KitKat.

Smartphone LG G Flex with a flexible display & curved

The South Korean company LG Electronics officially unveiled the LG G Flex – a smartphone whose body profile “twisted” on the profile of the person, and has its own development of the design in the form of a curved screen and battery, and additional user interface features that take advantage of the curved design of the display. 

As the producer, such a curvature in the body design of its new products can not only increase the volume in the dynamics of the smartphone when talking by 3 dB, but also provides improved voice quality and sound. In addition to games, movies and videos in portrait orientation, LG G Flex provides IMAX-like experience with the most comfortable angle for viewing.
In addition to this, LG refused to use a G Flex side buttons, and move them to the rear panel to avoid accidental clicks adjust the volume or turn off the unit. Now, all control can be made forefinger, similar to how it is implemented in the LG G2.

New user interface features listed below:

•  QTheater : quick access to photos, videos and YouTube directly from the lock screen;
• Dual Window : shared a 6-inch display new items into two separate areas that can run two separate applications;
• Swing Lockscreen : access to events in the lock mode oscillation of the smartphone;
• Face Detection Indicator (LED Face Detection): The LED indicator on the rear control key, confirming the status of the mode switch and focusing;
• Camera Timer (Timer Camera) LED (back button) flashes when the timer turned on the camera;
• Urgent Call Alert (missed an important indicator of calls) on the back of the indicator flashes red when the number of consecutive calls from one person remained unanswered.

LG G Flex will be available Coming Soon in market. About the beginning of sales of new products in other markets will be announced later.

What Key Features LG G Flex has?

• Support communications standards: LTE-A / LTE / HSPA + / GSM
• Processor: 2.26 GHz, quad, Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM 8974)
• Display: 6-inch, curved P-OLED, resolution of 1280×720
• Main Camera: 13 MP
• Front camera: 2.1 MP
• Memory: 2 GB RAM (LP DDR3), 32GB of internal
• Communications: WiFi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, BLuetooth v4.0, USB 3.0, NFC
• Battery: 3500 mA / h
• Misc. Features: Digital TV Tuner (TDMB), support for playback of 24-bit/192kHz audio

BlackBerry CEO Tells Businesses Company Is ‘Very Much Alive’

BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY)’s new chief executive officer urged customers to stick with the company because it remains committed to technology that helps corporate clients manage mobile devices, including those made by competitors.
BlackBerry’s device-management business caters to iPhone and Android smartphone users and is no more expensive than rival firms, contrary to what competitors say, CEO John Chen said in a letter to clients. The company’s customer base is growing for such services, he said in the letter, which was posted today on the company’s Inside BlackBerry blog.
“We are very much alive, thank you,” said Chen, who took over as CEO of the struggling Canadian smartphone maker last month. “We understand the realities of the enterprise mobility market better than anyone, and we’re in the game for the long term.”
Chen is seeking to reassure large business customers that the company will be there for them amid speculation that it might be broken up, with smartphone sales sliding and losses mounting. His hiring was announced on Nov. 4 after the company canceled plans to be bought by a group led by Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (FFH) and taken private.
BlackBerry rose 1.3 percent to $6.41 at the close in New York. The stock has dropped 46 percent this year.
Chen’s letter follows a series of full-page ads the Waterloo, Ontario-based company took out in newspapers around the world in October, communicating a similar message. Slow sales of new models such as the Z10 led to a 45 percent revenue decline in the quarter that ended in August, prompting a $934 million inventory writedown.

Wavering Support

Wireless carriers and other partners have begun to waver in their support for BlackBerry’s devices. T-Mobile US Inc. (TMUS), the fourth-largest U.S. carrier, said in September it would begin removing BlackBerry inventory from its stores, requiring buyers to have the phones shipped to them instead. Morgan Stanley (MS) and UBS AG (UBSN), two of the world’s biggest banks, have held off on a switch to BlackBerry 10, while Credit Suisse Group AG has decided not to upgrade at all.
Without naming any specific new customers, Chen stressed that the company is thriving and that BlackBerry plans to be around for a while.

Nokia Lumia 1520 review

 

Good

• Great high-definition screen
• Attractive, sturdy design
• Powerful processor
• Good battery life
• Decent camera

Bad

• Enormous size won't be to everyone's taste
• Windows Phone app store is still very poorly stocked

In this review

1. Should I buy the Nokia Lumia 1520?
2. Design and build quality
3. Display
4. Software and processor
5. Camera
6. Battery
7. Conclusion

Not happy with pumping out the best camera phone in the business in the form of the Lumia 1020, Nokia now wants to show it can still play a blinder on the specs front too. A recent update to Windows Phone brought support for Full HD displays and quad-core processors, allowing Nokia to finally stuff the most cutting-edge tech into its phones.
The Lumia 1520 is the first of Nokia's phones to take advantage of the update, packing a whopping 6-inch Full HD display, a 2.2GHz quad-core processor, 4G and a 20-megapixel camera -- making it the most technologically advanced phone Nokia has made to date.
Nokia will be announcing the price and release date of this super-phone on Monday, but it's expected to set you back around £500, SIM-free. Meanwhile, Carphone Warehouse has started preorders -- you can get it free from £38 per month on a two-year Vodafone contract.

Should I buy the Nokia Lumia 1520?

The Nokia Lumia 1520's bold, Full HD display makes the phone a great choice for movies on the move. Its processor is powerful, its battery puts up a good fight and the camera isn't at all bad either. Oh, and it looks nice. At 6 inches however, the 1520 is a giant beast of a mobile that really won't suit you if you're just looking for a good all-round phone.

The Lumia 1520 looks good, and has a huge 6-inch Full HD display.

If you're looking for a more pocketable Windows Phone mobile, check out the metal-edged Nokia Lumia 925 or the Lumia 1020 with its phenomenal camera. Bear in mind too that while Windows Phone looks good and is fun to use, it has a pitiful app store compared to Android.
If you're keen on big screens and want a host of apps to display on them, Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 is a solid choice. It too packs a Full HD display and a potent chip, but also comes with a stylus for handwriting your own notes.

Design and build quality

The Lumia 1520 is Nokia's biggest smart phone to date, measuring 163mm long, 85mm wide and 8.7mm thick. By using small bezels, Nokia hasn't wasted any space around the screen, but even so, the phone is an absolute goliath.
The 5-inch Samsung Galaxy S4 measures 136mm long and even that is too big for some. It's very difficult to use with one hand -- I found it almost impossible to stretch my thumb to the far corners when holding it as I would a phone. I'm not going to say it's "too big" as that is of course subjective and depends on what you're looking for in a device. What I will say, however, is that if you just want a regular phone, the 1520 almost certainly isn't going to suit. Instead, check out Nokia's Lumia 925.

This huge phone is Nokia's biggest yet.

It makes sense that the Note 3 is so huge as its included stylus lets you use the phone as a notebook, turning it into a valuable work tool. The Lumia 1520's skills instead lie more in displaying videos.
The 1520 shares most of the design cues with other phones in Nokia's Lumia range. Its body is made up of a single piece of polycarbonate, which, although plastic, has a very solid construction. It feels very sturdy to hold and there's no unpleasant flex or creaking in the chassis. It looks good too, with its bright colours and rounded edges, standing out from the usual black and grey shades found on other phones.
On the edges you'll find a nano-SIM tray (the extra-small SIM card you'll find on the iPhone 5), a 3.5mm headphone jack, power and volume buttons and a dedicated camera shutter button. There's a generous 32GB of storage, which you can expand with a microSD card.

Display

The 1520 is the first Windows Phone device to boast a Full HD display, thanks to a recent update to the software that supports higher resolutions. Spread over its 6-inch display, the display has a density of 367 pixels per inch, slightly beating the 334ppi of the Lumia 1020.
It results in a screen that's very sharp, with crisp edges on the large, colourful homescreen tiles and very clear text in Web pages. High definition photos and videos look great and the resolution is particularly useful if you're working with Excel spreadsheets in the Microsoft Office app.

The display is sharp and crisp with great colours.

It has great colours too, thanks to deep black levels, which provide rich contrast. The colours remain punchy, without looking oversaturated -- something the similarly-sized Galaxy Note 3 can suffer from at times. Mix in the good viewing angles and its low reflectivity (making it easier to view under bright lights), and the 1520's display is one of the best you'll find on a big phone.

Software and processor

The Lumia 1520 comes with the latest version of Windows Phone. The first thing you'll notice about the software is the extra column of icons on the homescreen. It allows for more apps and information from live tiles to be displayed at once, which makes sense on a phone this size.
Elsewhere, the interface is much the same as it is on any of Nokia's other Lumias. The homescreen tiles are clear and easy to read and a swipe to the left takes you into the app list to browse your collection, listed alphabetically. You can resize the homescreen icons and move them around to make sure that your most crucial tools are right where you need them, and the extra column lets you sit up to six app icons across one row.

The homescreen can show three columns of tiles, in order to make full use of that whopping screen.

One of my favourite aspects of Windows Phone is the People hub, which combines all your social network contacts into one place, allowing you to see all updates -- as well as post simultaneously to them all -- from the hub, without having to jump into different apps.
Windows Phone combines the simplicity, minimalist layout and ease of use of iOS with the customisability of Android. Sounds like an ideal solution, but it's not perfect. The main issue that plagues the software is the distinct lack of apps in the app store. While some good titles -- Spotify, Netflix, Skype -- are available, many big-name services are still missing.
If developers even do bother to write apps for Windows Phone, it tends to receive them much later than Android or iOS. Vine has only just made it to the store and Instagram has literally appeared in the last day. While the situation is improving, it's happening at a glacial pace. If you're keen on adding new services and tools to your phone or love checking out new games, Windows Phone really isn't going to suit you.

Nokia's maps and satellite navigation software are handy additions.

Nokia has bundled a bunch of its own apps to help plug the holes though. Its maps software is great, providing a wealth of local business information -- as well as letting you view nearby points of interest around you in an augmented reality view. Its Transit app shows live information about local public transport services and Here Drive gives turn-by-turn GPS satellite navigation, complete with downloadable maps for offline use.
A new addition is Nokia Storyteller, which lets you view your photos organised into groups (based on time and location taken), letting you annotate the pictures and easily view them on a map. For reminiscing about your holiday, Storyteller could be a very useful tool.

The Storyteller app is hardly groundbreaking, but it's an attractive way of viewing sets of photos.

The Lumia 1520 packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, clocked at a mighty 2.2GHz. The latest Windows Phone update brought with it support for quad-core processors, but I'm not exactly sure this level of power is necessary just yet. With such a lack of apps, there's very little that can challenge the processor right now -- it's like buying a Ferrari but only ever taking it to the shops and back.

Asphalt 8 is probably the most demanding app you can find for Windows Phones right now. Thankfully, the 1520 handled it without trouble.

It does at least make swiping around the interface very swift. There's zero delay in opening apps and menus and the camera starts up quickly too. I found the camera on the Lumia 1020 a little sluggish, but the 1520 has no such problem. High-definition video playback is handled well and racing game Asphalt 8 played very smoothly, with high frame rates.

Camera

The back of the phone is home to a 20-megapixel camera. That's a lower resolution than the ludicrous 41 megapixels of the photography-focused Lumia 1020, and the sensor size is physically smaller, meaning it can't take in as much light. The 1020 is a superb camera phone -- probably the best around -- so should still be on your shopping list if photography is your chief concern.

Nokia Lumia 1520 camera test (click image to enlarge).

It still packs loads of megapixels though, along with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics, so I was hoping for great image quality and I wasn't disappointed. On my test shot, the 1520 achieved a very nice exposure of the autumn light over St Paul's Cathedral. I found several of my images had some blue colour cast -- the white balance seemed to err on the colder side -- but that's easily countered by changing the white balance settings.
Quality is very high too. Even at full screen, there's plenty of detail to be seen on the fine brickwork on the opposite buildings. The high resolution of the phone allows you to digitally zoom in to the scene without losing quality -- something that is a particular skill of the super-high resolution Lumia 1020.
Nokia has a bunch of apps for camera use too. As well as the standard, no-nonsense camera app, you'll find Nokia Pro Cam, which gives you manual control over settings like white balance and shutter speed. Separate apps for Panorama and animated photos exist too. While there's plenty to keep a shutterbug happy, it's a little frustrating to have to keep switching into different apps each time. An all-encompassing photography app would be good to see in the future.

Battery

Nokia has filled the 1520's enormous body with a whopping great 3,400mAh battery, promising up to 25 hours of talktime on 3G. That's a very impressive figure, but keep in mind that that will be under optimal conditions so your own times will vary, depending on how you use it.
In my own tests I found the battery to be pretty good though. With medium-intensity use (a bit of gaming, sending and receiving some emails, streaming a bit of Netflix), I found it still had plenty of juice at the end of the working day after being taken off charge first thing in the morning.
If you use it cautiously -- keep the brightness down and avoid demanding tasks like gaming -- then you shouldn't struggle to get through the whole day and even have some power remaining the next morning. With regular, less careful use, you'll probably need to give it a charge overnight to ensure you don't run out of power before lunch the next day.

This is an enormous and potentially cumbersome phone, but its screen, camera and quality make it a good option despite that.

Conclusion

The Nokia Lumia 1520 is colourful, well made, has a brilliant screen, good battery life and a good camera, all of which make a solid phone all round. It is enormous and cumbersome though, which means it won't suit everyone's taste, and its Windows Phone operating system still suffers from a poorly stocked app store.

Samsung Galaxy S5 rumoured for February after poor S4 sales

Samsung is set to launch the follow-up to the Galaxy S4 in just a few months' time, according to a report out of Korea, after the flagship phone has failed to top its spectacularly popular predecessors.
The Galaxy S5 will launch in February, Korean site ET News reports, quoting an unnamed Samsung official, alongside a refreshed Galaxy Gear 2 smart watch. That's three months earlier than usual for the S series, which is usually shipped in May.
This premature mobile will come in two editions, the report says, with a Galaxy Round-esque curved metal option alongside a cheaper version in the usual plastic. Both will have 3GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel camera, a huge 4,000mAh battery and run on Android 4.4 KitKat from the get-go.
Samsung did not have any comment on the rumour at time of publication.
Samsung may be keen to cut its losses on the S4, which has suffered along with other high-end smart phone makers as budget Androids have become better and better. Bringing out a new flagship phone in February would certainly make Mobile World Congress interesting, and dominate the show in the same way the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear were by far the biggest deals at IFA back in September.
While the S4 is immensely powerful and has an incredibly good screen, it is superficially very similar to its predecessor, the S3. Android aficionados may have skipped it for the sleek metal of the HTC One, undoubtedly the most stylish phone of the year.
Are you perfectly happy with your S4, or peeved that it may be superseded so soon? What would you like to see in a future flagship from Samsung? Predict the future down in the comments, or over on our future-proof Facebook page.