Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 can be easily unlocked - if you’re lucky

We’re hearing that some Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 handsets have a surprisingly beneficial flaw: apparently, some of the devices trickled out into the marketplace with stock Qualcomm bootloaders that allow one to easily flash ROMs

by Sean Hollister

Source xda-developers

Apr 18, 2012, 7:01 AM UTC

Gallery Photo: White Lumia 800 hands-on photos

Sean Hollister is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

We're hearing that some Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 handsets have a surprisingly beneficial flaw: apparently, some of the devices trickled out into the marketplace with stock Qualcomm bootloaders that allow full access to the onboard memory of the phone. What that means is that if you power on the phone while holding down the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons, connect it to a computer over USB, and your computer recognizes it as a Qualcomm storage device, you can flash an unlocked ROM to the handset and freely install unsigned apps on your device... or, someday soon, perhaps even a build of Android.

With a Lumia 710, it’s apparently even easier to install the so-called Interop Unlock, as you can downgrade your phone’s bootloader to the earlier Qualcomm version with relative ease... but if your Nokia 800 shows up as “NOKIA DLOAD,” you’re out of luck for the time being. As always, take care: it’s not hard to brick a phone.

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