Sony has quietly released bootloaders for a bunch of phones

May 5, 2015 06:45 GMT  ·  By

So far, Sony’s host of Android smartphones hasn't really been tinkerer-friendly. Surely, owners of such phones could install CyanogenMod or AOKP or OmniROM on them by resorting to some trickery, but the real limitation was that the devices couldn't boot from a recovery partition.

However, Sony is taking care of these issues by quietly rolling out bootloaders that will let users boot from a recovery space. Thus, the Japanese company is making it easier for users to install custom ROMs and other different platforms like Firefox OS or Ubuntu Touch on their devices (as seen at FXP Blog).

But there’s a catch to this story, as it normally happens in this world. Sony is releasing these bootloaders for a bunch of its low-end to mid-range smartphones, including the Xperia T2 Ultra, Xperia T3, Xperia M2 and Xperia E3.

No bootloaders for Sony's flagships have been released

So, as you can see, there’s no Xperia Z3 support offered for the time being, but we shouldn't rule out the possibility that Sony might offer the same bootloader treatment to its flagship at some point.

Since there are a lot of custom ROMs made available for Sony devices, you shouldn't be having any trouble finding one that suits your needs. Playing around with an alternate operating system, if you’re bored of Android, might also be quite fun.

One of Sony’s latest mid-range models is the Xperia E4g, a phone that might get the very same bootloader treatment sooner than the company’s flagships.

The device comes with typical specs for an affordable smartphone, meaning a 4.7-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports 540 x 960 pixel resolution and a 2,300 mAh non-removable battery.

On the inside, the handset is equipped with a 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6732 processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory, which luckily can be expanded further to 64GB via the microSD card slot included in the mix.

There’s also a 5MP photo snapper on the back which features LED flash autofocus and HD (720p) video recording, as well as a secondary 2MP camera on the front. Nothing out of the ordinary but surely good enough to tinker with.

In related news, Sony also recently rolled out its latest flagship product, the Xperia Z4, which will be made available only in Japan.

One of Sony's low-end phones (5 Images)

Sony Xperia E3 frontal look
Sony Xperia E3 appsSony Xperia E3 view from bellow
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