Motorola Droid X rooted, bootloader still in lock-down

A talented dev named Steven Bird (aka “Birdman“) has managed to successfully root Motorola’s locked-down Droid X in just 6 days.

However, as Phil Nickinson of Android Central notes, the admirable feat still doesn’t quite “kill off” legitimate concerns over the hardcore bootloader.

“We’re talking root access, not custom ROMs just yet. But it’s a big step,” wrote Nickinson.

“You’ll need to be handy with the command line (and if you can copy and paste, you should be) and read the instructions, because everything on the Droid X will have root access after this.”

Ron Hamelin of Android Police concurred.

“For those of you who have been wondering if the Droid X would ever be rooted, you can all breath a collective sigh of relief.

“[But] as a clarification, rooting does not entail the ability to install custom ROMs or recovery boot images. In addition, this does not address the bootloader issue.”

Hamelin also listed several reason Droid X owners would want to root their device, including:

  • Backing up the entire system to an SD card.
  • Gaining full control over the Android’s operating system (Superuser access).
  • Running special apps that require root permission.
  • Removing any app from your smartphone – excluding MOTOBLUR.

Instructions for the Droid X root can be found on AllDroid. Please remember: Rooting voids the terms of your phone’s warranty and Verizon service contract. Proceed at your own risk.