Sony is quickly becoming one of the most important and biggest Android manufacturers. While the past wasn’t really bright, the future has a lot reserved for this company, especially seeing all the success with the latest phone. We are all waiting for the next flagship Sony device which will be called Xperia Z4. Sony changed its mind again and switched from creating a flagship device every 6 months to a new flagship each year.
The Xperia Z4 will be released in just a few weeks alongside other Android giants like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and LG G4. Users are very excited about the new flagship because it will come with a brand new design and improved specifications, unlike the Xperia Z3 which was almost the same as the Xperia Z2. While the Xperia Z3 wasn’t that different compared to its predecessor, this didn’t stop old Xperia owners from buying it. Excellent build quality, high quality materials, sturdy body design, fast Snapdragon 801 chipset, sharp 20.7 MP camera and water-resistant body design are a few reasons for the success of the Z3.
Development support for this phone is also huge and you can already install ROMs and mods. In this article, we are going to root the Xperia Z3 and install custom recovery with locked bootloader. Sony Xperia devices are very easy to root in general but there is only a small problem, the locked bootloader. Follow the guide below to easily root the firmware and install a recovery even though the bootloader is locked.
Contents
What You Need
You need to download firmware version 23.0.A.2.93 (for D6603/D6653) or 23.0.F.1.74 (for D6633).
Download Giefroot rooting tool – Link
Enabled Developer Options & USB Debugging – Tutorial
Enable “Allow Mock Locations” inside Developer Options
Rooting Xperia Z3 (Locked Bootloader)
- Download the Giefroot rooting tool and extract the files to your desired location.
- Using your preferred USB cable, connect your phone to your computer.
- Enter the extracted folder and start a file called “install.bat”.
- A pop-up message will show up asking you to authorize the connected computer. Click OK.
- Wait for the procedure to finish. The phone will reboot and a pop-up message from SuperSU will show up asking you to grant root access (ADB Shell). Click “Grant”.
- The window on your computer will show “Device Rooted”.
Installing Custom Recovery on Xperia Z3 (Locked Bootloader)
- Download a root file explorer from the Play Store. There are some great file managers like ES File Explorer or Root Explorer.
- Download Xperia Z3 Dual Recovery here.
- Extract the zip file and start “install.bat” file.
- Click the option 1 and simply follow the instructions.
- Restart your phone.
- There will be a new app called NDR Utils which will let you to easily boot into TWRP custom recovery.
That is it. Now your Sony Xperia Z3 is rooted, has a custom TWRP recovery installed and the bootloader is still locked. On top of that, you will still keep DRM keys and camera performance will not be affected.