14 DAY TRIAL // ASUS introduced the Zenfone 2 as the first phone to sport 4GB of RAM back at CES 2015 in January. It took a few months for the device maker to put the flagship on the market, but now customers all over the world can pick up the phone in different configurations.
And if you’re the owner of one such phone and you’re looking to customize it, you should know that an unofficial bootloader for the device is now available via the xda-developers forum. Which means developers are free to take up developing custom ROMs whenever they please.
In order to get their bootloader unlocked, users will have to update their Zenfone 2 to the latest firmware version, 2.19.40. However, bear in mind that this piece of software is not yet compatible with all versions of Zenfone 2. Not yet anyway.
The implications of unlocking the bootloader
While installing custom ROMs or rooting your phone might sound like fun, there are a number of things you should be taking into consideration before proceeding further. For example, the action of unlocking your bootloader will void your warranty.
Furthermore, if you have never tried your hand at installing a custom ROM, you might want to leave this task to the more experienced users, because one single slip might end up bricking your device. Rooting your phone also means you won’t be receiving OTA updates until you re-install Android.
But if you’re okay with taking a risk, you can follow the instructions provided on the xda-developers community forum in order to open a whole new world of possibilities for your Zenfone 2.
There are a few versions of the Zenfone 2 which are currently available on the market for pickup. The high-end one includes a 5.5-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display with support for full HD (1080p) resolution and features Corning Gorilla Glass 3 coating.
On the inside, the handset packs a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3580 processor, a PowerVR G6430 graphics processing unit, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal memory.
There are also cheaper versions which bundle 720p displays, a lesser processor (1.8GHz quad-core Intel atom Z3560) and 2GB of RAM.