The Kindle Fire HDX Tablet is just one of those tablets, you know – the ones that you love so much for the robust specs but hate so much because of the software embedded in it. In this case it is Amazon’s proprietary Fire OS. Nothing against the concept of tweaked Android stuff, because we love that. It’s just the locked bootloader on the tablet – which means you can’t easily change software – that tick us off.
The Kindle Fire HDX is one robust piece of tech – we dig the 7-inch and 8.9-inch full HD displays, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors, and the 2GB of RAM. What’s not to like? Well, the locked bootloader, for one. If you grow tired of Fire OS, there is no easy way to get to a stock Android-based ROM. (There is a way, but it’s just not easy or as safe.)
Enter XDA member “dpeddi”, who has published a procedure to unlock the bootloader – the first step to safer and more generic flashing of custom ROMs to your Kindle Fire HDX. There are a couple of caveats to this process though. First, you need to have root access to your device. How you do that is your issue to do (besides, it’s fun to finally get root access). Then, you need to be running the Kindle Fire HDX firmware version 3.1.0 through 3.2.4 ONLY. If you’re running something newer, you have to find a way to downgrade. Lastly, the commands are run from a Linux PC. We’re pretty sure someone can translate that to a Windows-driven process soon, though.
Oh, and please note – if you want to do this to a Fire Phone, you’re out of luck, it’s not going to work. Pretty rough hack, at this point. But if you exercise a little patience, we’re pretty sure this is going to get easier as the hack matures. Check out the original thread here at XDA at your own risk.
VIA: Liliputing
