Last Updated on October 9, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake
The Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini i8190 is a brand new Android Smartphone that was released just last month after being announced by Samsung some time in October. It is fully equipped with both a rear and front facing camera, 4 inch screen and dual core processor and running Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1. Because it is so new to the market, there is not too much to report on it other than for a mini it is still a powerful device worth owning. If you have been lucky enough to pick up one of these beauties and are interested in rooting it, here is the guide on how to do so.
Please note: In order to do this you will need a Windows PC. You will also need to open up your S3 Mini and check which firmware it has running. For this to be a safe procedure you need the XXALK6 ROM. To check which ROM you have, go to Settings> About the phone.
This phone just officially turned one year old last month. Although it was not launched until January, it was first shown off to the world 13 months ago now. Looking back, it has performed probably about as well as Samsung could have hoped for. Its market is obviously limited because not everybody wants a small handset, and many people already had just bought the normal sized S3, but that isn’t what this was about. Manufactures that choose Android does a great job of bring out phone’s for a specific market and this has been one of the key elements of the little green robot’s success. Speaking of the green man, it just turned five the other month too!
Being smaller than its predecessor in more ways than one, it’s important that we squeeze every last drop of performance out of it so it can be enjoyed. It is lacking power compared to the standard size, but by following this guide, we can open it up to bigger and better things. When people go shopping for a new mobile they have the chance to pay extra for a warranty. Not all people do this, and if you don’t remember asking for it then you probably haven’t. However, many people do and it’s not cheap. Fort that reason it’s important to tell you that following this will make that extra purchase void and not worth anything to you. If you send it away because something is wrong, they won’t fix it. They will send it back to you and say there’s nothing they can do. Being a nice little phone, this isn’t going to be very appealing, but there is something you can do. If you like the root access can be taken away and the manufacturer will not know you ever played around with it at all. This will mean they will fix it. The only problem is doing it and fining a guide. We are not 100%, but we are sure there will be one floating around the web somewhere. The reason we say this is because that it is a Samsung and a very popular device. These are the ones that developers generally target and make sure everything is available for because more people are around to use them. Wherever there is a market there is a developer they like to say.
Details of Note
Galaxy products always come with a Micro SD card. This is a great thing for backing up with and is our preferred method over all others. If you have used mobiles for at least a few years now, you might be familiar with using computers (Mac or Windows) for the backup. Rather than making you learn something new we will continue from this. Use the SMS backup + application available from Google Play to make copies of the important text messages. Use additional apps such as Helium or Titanium for all the data and syncing concerns. backup the EFS folder, phone contacts, call logs, market apps, videos, music files and pictures.
As long as you have an SD card reader, you can then connect into the computer and the contents will appear on the screen. Now you can copy this to a new file which you should label what you like. Now we have a spare card copy of all the contents. It can be contacts, applications, settings, whatever you have saved that you don’t want to lose. The reader won’t come with your handset, so checking the box for it all day won’t do you any good. Instead, you will need to take a drive to your local electronics store and buy it. The store clerk should be able to help you. Most likely you have seen them before. A popular brand for this is SanDisk.
It doesn’t matter what software version you are running to follow this guide as long as you haven’t updated in the last six months. If you have managed to keep running the same firmware for you bought it, then this will be fine. We know that the S3 mini comes with Android 4.1.1 jelly bean with TouchWiz UX UI out of the box. It received the Android 4.1.2 jelly bean OTA update since then.
How to Root Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini i8190
Step 1. Download the root package as well as ODIN to your Windows PC.
Step 3. Now you will need to enable USB debugging mode. To do this go to settings>application>development>check the USB debugging box.
Step 4. After installing ODIN, open it.
Step 5. Upon reboot, put it in download mode. If you don’t know how to do this: When rebooting hold power, home and volume down buttons simultaneously.
Step 6. Once in download mode, connect the S3 Mini to the computer with the USB cable it came with.
Step 7. In ODIN you need to select PDA and then use the root file that you downloaded to your computer in step 1.
Step 8. Now you need to click start. Doing this will now make the tool start working.
You will know if it has been successful because ODIN will display a pass message on the screen.
Download the root checker app from Google Play and verify the success.