I was strolling through Best Buy’s sales online today and noticed that the price of the ZTE Score had dropped to $49.99.
This price should be good today (Sunday) through tomorrow (Cyber Monday).
If you are looking to buy this phone, jump now because many of these sale items have been selling out very quickly.
Get in there folks and snag a ZTE Score
Amazon offers the LOWEST price I’ve seen so far at $68! This is better than Walmart and BestBuy, as well as the Cricket website.
I do not know how long this will last, but if you were planning on getting on, I would do it now — early Christmas shopping perhaps?
In any case, check it out and keep on rock’n.
DisclaimerThis article is not an endorsement of rooting your phone – and Rock That Mobile takes zero responsibility for anything you do with your phone including attempting to follow the process about to be explained. You may hurt your phone and void your warranty.
If you have already rooted your ZTE Score from Cricket Wireless and want to return it to its unrooted state, you need SuperOneClick. I must say that it has been a bit of a pain to use, as it has continued to hang on “step 6″. Apparently this is a common problem and there is a solution — of course I read about this after reaching the point of “Grrrrr”.
First, download SuperOneClick from XDA forums. You will need to download their files attached to the forum post and not from the creator’s site, as its links are currently down.
Second, extract the zip file and run the program file, SuperOneClick.exe.
Third, make sure your phone is turned on, plugged in to the PC via USB, has USB Debugging turned on, and try to position yourself close to the USB port your phone is plugged in to. You will see why.
Fourth, run the unroot by selecting “Unroot”. If your phone’s connected right and your phone’s drivers are installed properly, SuperOneClick should make it to at least “Step 6″. If it hangs and becomes “Not Repsonding” here (it did with me every time), unplug the USB cord and plug it back in quickly.
Every time, as the XDA forum gurus suggested, it moved to step 7. On one of my unroot attempts, it seemed to get stuck in a loop of mounting the system as read only. This kept repeating, repeating, repeating until the program became completely unresponsive. Despite this, the phone was unrooted.
XDA forums has over 500 pages of posts on problems people have encountered using SuperOneClick and the corresponding solutions. If you run in to problems, head over there and read a bit.
If you cannot find what you are looking for, the gurus may have an answer for you, but of course, please make sure you search for the answer first so that the gurus do not have to repeat themselves if possible.
Yes, you can use SuperOneClick to root your ZTE Score, but the process was just as “buggy” as the unroot. I had to do the USB cord pull during the root process just like I had to do during the unroot process.
Using the Zerg tool to root was significantly easier and less inconsistent. My suggestion would be to use the Zerg to root and SuperOneClick to unroot if needed.
Let me know what you think Rockstars!
Rock That Mobile ZTE Score
I am actually super new to the whole rooting thing, as I have not really been too keen on voiding warranties on expensive phones.
The ZTE Score, however, is NOT an expensive phone and is a perfect candidate for playing around with rooting if I ever saw one.
I do not have this down to a science, but I am going to share with you what worked for me.
If it works for you, Great!
If you find a way to improve on anything discussed here, leave a comment and I’ll look into it and add it to the discussion if warranted.
NOTE: Do not forget to check out the links at the end of this post for special recovery images, how to go back to a stock rom, specialized roms, and other tools and how-to items.
Super One Click actually uses Zerg to root the device through its interface – for some reason or another, this interface through Super One Click works while the Zerg tool itself seems to not be working at the moment on its own. You can get Super One Click at XDA or Shortfuse.org.
The root method is similar – make sure you have the Window’s drivers installed, which you can get straight from ZTE. Put your device into USB Debugging Mode by going through ”menu”—>”Settings”—->Manage Applications—>Development and then select the check box for debugging mode.
You may need to disable your Antivirus auto protect to unzip Super One Click and then run it without the antivirus determining that the Zerg tool is a “hack tool” that is dangerous to your computer. A alot of Antivirus software is designed to auto remove or “fix” these files, and you will need to disable it (or tell it the file is safe if possible) if it tried to auto remove Zerg.
After all this, connect the x500 ZTE Score by USB to the computer and run SuperOneClick.exe.
The one problem I ran in to was that the three times I successfully rooted the ZTE Score during my trials, each time it put the device into a boot loop where it showed the Muve Music banner over and over and over and over. To abort this, I just pulled the battery and disconnected the USB from the computer. This worked each time without any lasting ill effects.
I recommend using “Root Checker Basic” to see if the process was successful.
Happy Rooting!
- Gingerbreak
- Z4Root
-Unlock Root
- Zerg’s One Click Permanent Root Tool (the tool outside of SuperOneClick)
First, I followed Jon’s advice over at Yahoo Answers to use Zerg’s One Click Permanent Root tool. I had tried Z4root, Gingerbreak, and a few other options, but all of them had not worked
Second, I started the long process (in my case, hopefully not in yours) of getting the computer to install the right drivers for the ZTE Score.
I started by hunting down the official USB driver for ZTE devices and picked ZTE+Android+USB+Driver+for+Microsoft+PC_5.2066.1.8 .
Now, I am NOT sure that this driver was the key to my success at installing the phone driver or not, but I am including this information and the link because I did not have any success before I installed this and I did have success after although not directly related to those files per se.
Third, I put my phone in “Debugging mode” and went to my Window’s 7 “Devices and Printers” menu and right clicked on the ZTE drive that showed up and selected auto run and then “setup”.
After installing the setup the first time, I have been unable to replicate finding this file. This setup took me to a Android driver install screen for the ZTE device.
Window’s kept asking me to format the drive that this program was stored on, and I continually declined it — I’m not sure what that was about and I did not want to erase my phone.
*Note* You can get to “Debugging Mode” from the home screen by pressing “menu”—>”Settings”—->Manage Applications—>Development and in there Debugging is an option.
Fourth, I ran the ZergRushTempRoot.bat file that was inside the zip file of Zerg’s One Click Permanent Root tool. I watched the console go through a bunch of text and then it said it was successful, restarted something, and then bam! it was rooted.
I restarted the phone and I used the app “Root Check” to verify that I had root installed. The ZTE Score comes with Busybox already installed according to the “Root Check”, which is cool.
Final words — As far as I know, there is no backup ROM out there on the internet if you irreparably screw up the ZTE Score. If you attempt to follow in my footsteps – be careful. I will write more about my root adventures as I have them.
Welcome to the jungle!
Rock That Mobile ZTE Score!
*disclaimer* This is not an endorsement of rooting your phone – and Rock That Mobile takes zero responsibility for anything you do with your phone including attempting to follow the process about to be explained. You may hurt your phone and void your warranty.*disclaimer*
Initial ZTE Score ReviewYesterday, I bought a ZTE Score from Best Buy online for a whopping $89 dollars. This makes the ZTE Score the lowest priced Android on a no-contract plan in the market. The next closest in price is the LG Optimus V from Virgin Mobile at $149.99.
I’ve had the ZTE Score for a few hours now, and I am letting it charge after my initial tinkering. While it charges, I figured I would let you know about some of my preliminary thoughts.
Specs They Do Not Tell You About
Initial Things I Like:
Initial Things I Hate:
The Sum of the Matter
The ZTE Score has promise. It is very clearly “budget”, but it offers nice speed and can handle some games similar phones cannot (like Need for Speed). App storage space is limited — very limited, but you will be able to take advantage of Apps2SD that moves part (not all) of an app to the microSD card.
I will continue to update ya’ll on my journey with this phone and hopefully (if I can get the blasted camera to work) post a video showing you its performance abilities.
Rock That Mobile — Signing Out!
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Owner/Editor of Rock That Mobile - a growing network of blogs about all things mobile.
I'm a true geek - I love me some video games and a newbie's helping of graphic design.
II am particularly interested in Androids and the growing trend of no contract and prepaid mobile service providers.
In real life, I am a high school teacher. I moonlight as a blogger.
I love my family and my friends!
Let's keep it Rock'n!
