To root or not to root?

[gwmclean]

Ok, I've been reading a few thing here, and online, and now I am wondering.....Should I root this Sylvania Tablet?

Can anyone out there lay out so of the pro, and cons of rooting this device? I would rate my computer skills as novice to intermediate.

And I now that there are some great link/articles/post about rooting in general, however I am looking for information specifically about rooting the Sylvania Tablet and its pro's and cons. And if people have rooted their tablets what to look for and what extra junk they have removed.

And on a side note: I mistaken added a couple widgets off on the main screen. Now I have deleted them, but they keep popping as errors making me force close them, would rooting the tablet allow me to remove these widget from a start-up line?

 

[cfrockit]

Root, why not? This is a low end tablet that after rooting will allow you to gain experience exploring a working android device. I lurked for quite sometime before making the plunge but by reading and following the steps provided of those that have more experience I feel I am gaining enough knowledge to experiment with some changes that may or may not work.

What to remove? You'll have to read and decide on your own but I took the approach to maximize battery uptime to remove those apk's that weren't needed and seemed to cause additional processes to run. These included phone, telephony, bluetooth, etc.

Take the plunge. What the worse that can happen? For me, the device locked up on the Sylvania splash screen after making one change to many. I searched the forum, found the sequence of keys to hold/push and the device recovered back to the original. So I'm going to Root again and try more stuff. It's fun, if you call this fun.

 

[bigwooly]

yes after rooting you can uninstall the apps causing the FC's

 

[gwmclean]

Ok....Took the plunge and ran the rooting program....Now I am able to scan directories and see where everything is. Any tips from the community? Basically looking for any tips specfic to this Tab, which will help me speed it up, save some battery, etc. Would appriciate any tips, sites and or reading you can recommend.

 

[ImagineThat]

A lot of reading makes for a nice tablet! Some quick pointers:

1. Follow bigwooly's steps for getting the google experience installed. This gives you the "real" android marketplace that most are familiar with on high-end tablets and phones. Not a neccesity, but it adds some great functionality and doens't seem to slow anything down. I've not tried the web-based market myself, but I've heard that it doesn't work great. Installing the full google experience also gets you google talk, maps, the gmail app, etc. http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/sylvania-tablets/4229-how-get-working-google-market.html

2. Get a new homescreen/launcher. The one that comes with it is poor, slow, and the widgets are horrible at taking battery power and constantly trying to connect over wifi. A lot of people like launcher pro, zeam and helix are other alternates that seem to be faster. You can even go as far as removing the stock launcher to gain some battery life and boost your speed. http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/sylvania-tablets/5378-removing-stock-launcher.html

3. Remove "useless" programs. Make sure to do this AFTER installing the google experience/market if you choose to. The popular apks to delete are phone, telephony, and bluetooth. This improves battery life as the tablet doesn't have a bluetooth or cellular chip in it, yet the processes still run in the background stealing your precious battery. You can see my post #9 on how to remove system apps like this, the process is the same for these as it is to remove skyfire. There are other ways using command lines and adb...but this is how to do it all form the tablet. http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/sylvania-tablets/3171-firmware-2-02-a.html