Rooting a cheap Android tablet

Gorton Fisherman

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May 26, 2002
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Port Orange, FL
I'm primarily an iOS guy, but recently I became interested in futzing around with Android a bit, so I bought myself a cheap ($100) Chinese tablet (the Onda V80 Plus). It's actually a dual-boot device with both Windows 10 and Android 5.1 installed. One downside of having two operating systems installed is that it doesn't leave a whole lot of the 32GB internal flash storage free for additional apps, etc., so I added a 32GB micro SD card, which seems to work fine and is recognized by both OS's.

My question is: on the Android side, how can I move existing apps to the SD card, and/or make the SD card the default location for newly installed apps? From what I've read online, the "easy" way to do this is to go to Settings/Apps and use the "Move to SD Card" button on individual apps, however, on my tablet, this option is not displayed for any app that I have tried. I read about the possibly of installing the Link2SD app; however using this app appears to require rooting your device. So I went ahead and tried the rooting thing using two of the apparently more popular rooting apps (KingoRoot and Towelroot), but both failed to root the device, and I was hesitant to try others, since a lot of them seem super-sketchy, to say the least.

My questions are:
  1. Is there a way to somehow get apps to install on the SD card without rooting the device?
  2. If I need to root the device, what's the best approach? Is there a way to "manually" root the device without using one of these skeevy-looking apps?
  3. Are there other reasons why I would want to root the device anyway? From what I gather doing so compromises the security of the device. What are the benefits?
Appreciate any advice...
 
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Scott Cooper's Grand Slam

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Jul 12, 2008
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Really not trying to be snarky or preachy here, but "security of the device" and "cheap Chinese Android tablet" are incompatible. They come pre-installed with malware. A quick Google found forum posts of users complaining of malware in their Onda dual-OS tablet.

That's all to say: root away. Have fun. Experiment, learn, enjoy. But don't let security stop you. Your device won't be any less secure if you root it. Perhaps you could even remove the malware with root access... but it's in your best interest to consider this thing compromised, and don't put any personal info on it.
 

AlNipper49

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I have wasted so much of my life trying to make shit like this work 'right'

Consider it a backup Netflix viewing device and treat it as such. You'll save so much frustration.
 

Blacken

Robespierre in a Cape
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Jul 24, 2007
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There aren't many really good reasons to root a device in 2016 outside of a development environment or test lab. It greatly increases the attack surface available to applications that you install (and devices in a dev env or test lab don't have personal stuff on them anyway).

If there are features you want, you're much better off buying a device that has it native. The amount of risk you can expose yourself to inadvertently is very high. Mr. Cooper's got it right in that you shouldn't trust something like that with anything.
 

Gorton Fisherman

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Thanks for the info, especially about the potential existence of malware, etc. At least for the time being, the only additional "feature" I'm looking for is the ability to use the SD card for storing apps. Am I correct in assuming that this capability does in fact require rooting the device (i.e., it is not a "native" feature of a vanilla Android 5.1 installation)? I guess I'm a tad surprised since I'm always hearing what a huge advantage having an SD card slot is for expanding the built-in storage on Android devices.

Regarding malware, any recommendations for malware scanning/removal tools on Android?
 
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cardiacs

Admires Neville Chamberlain
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Jul 15, 2005
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Milford, CT
I was considering rooting my mom's android just to get rid of all the bloatware and make the usage as simple as possible. She only really needs like 5 apps and the rest are just confusing her. What would you folks suggest in this case? /hijack
 

AlNipper49

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Apr 3, 2001
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Mtigawi
Thanks for the info, especially about the potential existence of malware, etc. At least for the time being, the only additional "feature" I'm looking for is the ability to use the SD card for storing apps. Am I correct in assuming that this capability does in fact require rooting the device (i.e., it is not a "native" feature of a vanilla Android 5.1 installation)? I guess I'm a tad surprised since I'm always hearing what a huge advantage having an SD card slot is for expanding the built-in storage on Android devices.

Regarding malware, any recommendations for malware scanning/removal tools on Android?
Don't be surprised. The nice thing with Android is anyone can effectively do anything with it. The downside of Android is that anyone can effectively do anything with it.

I'm guessing this manufacturer has a larger sized model with more storage space so they pulled an Apple. (That iPhones don't have removable storage or removable batteries in the year 2016 is just plain dumb)