[Xperia Z3 Compact Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MechaBouncer:
Hi everyone. I'm heavily considering getting a Xperia Z3 Compact, but I have a few hangups that I would like to get some feedback. I've been rooting my devices since I've been using Android. When my Galaxy S4 Active was updated to Android 4.3 and I lost root for 3 months, I hated it. But it's an ongoing battle that I'm tired of fighting and I've found that there are only really a couple apps that I really need root access for. Plus, if I really need to, I can unlock the bootloader and root the Z3C, but I don't want to lose the DRM keys and degrade my device for only a couple programs if I don't have to. So I'm wondering just how necessary they are and whether I can work around this.

The first application that I use all the time is Titanium Backup. I've been using it since my very first Android device and it has been a valuable tool. I've used it to backup applications that I didn't have room for and restore them later, to remove or freeze bloatware, and to upgrade system apps with new versions to save room. These things were a necessity with my old Xperia Play. However, the main function that I really need is the backup of app data. Anything can restore the installed apps, but very little will backup the actual app data.

Or at least so I thought. I've been using Titanium Backup for so long that I didn't really consider switching to any other applications. Plus the GS4A was my first phone on Android 4.x, so I didn't know about the included ADB backup feature built into it. From what I understand, Helium can do an ADB backup without root access, correct? Has anyone used this with the Z3C? I've read that some Sony phones don't support it. Although I've also read that all Motorola phones don't support it, and the GSM version of the Droid Turbo (aka "Moto X Play" last I read) is my other contender against the Z3C.

The next app that I use right now is FolderMount and this one is a bit trickier. Back on the Xperia Play, space was incredibly limited. I used Link2SD to save more space than moving apps to the MicroSD card through the Application Management. I could probably have used it on the GS4A, but I found FolderMount to be much easier to work with. It was also necessary because all moving apps to the SD card did was move them to an emulated SD card on the main device storage, which defeated the entire purpose.

I still don't understand why this is so stupidly designed now and why Google keeps trying to kill off the SD card. Or for that matter why device manufacturers still include only 16GB with SD card expansion (and no way of moving apps properly) or only 32GB without. Neither is enough room for games that can consume a gigabyte or two for massive .obb files. And in all honesty, those .obb files are all that I want to move, which is why FolderMount works so well for that.

So that brings me to the question that I think I already know the answer to: Has anyone found a way to move the .obb files to the external SD card without root access? Either that, or to change it so that the shared storage is the SD card and all the .obb files get downloaded to it by default? I suspect that the answer is still "not without root" here. It just seems asinine that Sony not include this feature if they are going to include an inadequate amount of storage space.

Aside from those issues, I could probably run without root access for most other things. Although root does make it much handier. I just hate needing it to fix or workaround poor design decisions on the part of manufacturers or Google themselves.