When the Asus Eee Pad Transformer was released, there was a mini-outrage of sorts, when a developer from XDA discovered that the bootloader was locked. This meant a big spoke in the wheels as far as development activities were concerned for the Nvidia Tegra 3 powered beast, but Asus relented, and rose up to the occasion by announcing that they would be working on an unlock tool for the Prime. And after an anxious but not so long wait, today we have the official bootloader unlocking tool from Asus.
Asus said that it originally locked down the Transformer Prime because of “content providers’ requirement for DRM client devices to be as secure as possible”. Therefore, unlocking the Prime will render your warranty void, plus you are likely to lose access to Google video rental. Of course, these are early days, and miracles are, almost always, guaranteed to happen thanks to our awesome development community.
Note: It is important that you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and do this, because there is no going back, or no Relock Bootloader method available; at least not as yet. Have a look at the official release note from Asus
If you still want to go ahead, and liberate your Prime, you can download the Bootloader Unlocker from the official support site or from this Mirror directly to your Prime. It’s an apk file, so you can install it like any other apk file, and then run it on the device to unlock the bootloader.
So if you’ve been itching to go ahead and flash a Custom ROM, or at least to be prepared for the deluge of Custom ROMs and MODs that are bound to be released now that the gate has been opened, go ahead and download the Unlocker tool, and let it do it’s magic on your Prime. By the way, as I type this article, there is already a brand new Custom ROM out for the Prime, and I’m sure those of you who have not gone back after reading the warning note above, are gonna move on to that article next!!
So go ahead and liberate your Prime, and let us know your thoughts in comments below.
