Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE bootloader can be unlocked easily

HTC EVO 4G LTE is already available from Sprint but not as a unlocked phone. But i read somewhere on the web itself that we can easily unlock the bootloader of this phone. It was also mentioned that the device will not be carrier restricted on Sprint. Is it really true?

I am not sure about this and I don’t think that it will happen that easily since this phone has released just 2 days ago and how someone can able to hack to bootloader to unlock it. Most of the phone took many days to get the bootloader unlocked but this one is real quick.

Now a days every user wants to know that the phone getting launched in the market is with locked bootloader or not. If it has locked bootloader, users eager to know how to unlock the bootloader. It is obvious that HTC, Motorola and carriers like Sprint and AT& T can do anything to make their phone unlockable in any manner. But you will be happy to hear that someone got a crack into the EVO 4G LTE and find a hack for it. Yes, the bootloader can be now easily unlockable and the instructions itself provided on the HTCdev site.

You just need to have 2 things to unlock this phone if you have already brought from sprint. They are Android SDK and a few simple instructions from HTCDev. Thats it. It will take just few minutes to get the job done.

AT&T had already locked down bootloaders on their HTC One X and the next round is all about the Sprint bringing same restrictions as AT&T did to HTC smartphones. But you don’t have to worry about the new HTC EVO 4G LTE from sprint because it is now completed supported by HTCDev’s bootloader unlock tool.

You can get into root of the phone to unlock the bootloader. But there is a problem with HTC’s unlocking method because it is not direct. I mean bootloader unlock tool does not provide a direct “S-Off” functionality to a device. You have to go through the lengthy process for “full root”. It contains several tasks like AOSP ROMs, kernels, deleting bloatware, custom recoveries, and so on. There is no way these procedures can be accomplished by traditional methods.

As far as I know that there are many functional differences which you need to know about the bootloader unlock on EVO 4G LTE. There is a possibility for you to flash the Custom ROM and you can also make a custom recovery before that but the process is not as simple as you think. There is no S-OFF feature. What I am telling is, a unlocked bootloader isn't full S-OFF.When you flash the ROM, you have to boot to bootloader. There by using fastboot, you have to flash the boot.img file and erase the cache. Once it is done, find the recovery and flash the ROM.

Now you know that all HTC phones ship with locked bootloaders and it needs some kind of encrypted signature to unlock them. The HTCdev might have found the way to unlock the bootloader but it is still S-ON. They did not turn it to S-off. It means that you cannot get the whole thing via recovery.

With S-off you can get everything from the recovery because it will completely unlock the bootloader. ROM has two parts, kernel and OS. The kernel will reside at /boot partition and OS and apps into the /system partition. With S-OFF, you can recover both areas at once but with S-ON, you need to flash each partition separately. When you get the unlocked bootloader using the HTCdev tool, user have to install a SuperUser app using fastboot commands and then install EStrongs File Explorer and Titanium Backup to get the root access.

The HTC officially does not allow you to unlock the bootloader of EVO 4G LTE. Even you cannot flash the ROM, kernel etc. But some folks find it very easy to unlock the bootloader by using PC and some stuff. But this time the HTC finally made an important decision. They have provided complete instructions about unlocking the bootloader using the Android SDK. The intention of the procedure is to have full root. But it will void your warranty. You can easily get past the encryption here without breaking it. But unlocking bootloader will not allow you to flash new ROM. I hope that in future the HTC will offer a full S-Off solution.