How to Root ZTE Axon 7 and Install TWRP Recovery 3.4.0

If you are an owner of a ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii) smartphone, and also want to customize this rugged smartphone, then you have visited the right page.

ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii) is one of the latest ZTE devices, whose highlights are Dual Hi-Fi Stereo Speakers, 2K WQHD AMOLED Display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Processor, and 20 megapixels OIS camera. The smartphone is equipped with the dual flagship audio processors, which are AK4961 and AK4490, which provides the highest quality of audio of up to 32bit HiFI Playback (DAC) and recording (ADC) along with amplication. The Axon 7 has a special front-facing symmetrical design, which has a Dolby ATMOS and Dolby Digital Surround speakers. The device has a 8meter ultra-far HD recording, with 360 degree sound recognition, Auto-adaptive noise suppression algorithm, with the Dual-Mic array and high-sensitive array processing. The smartphone is crafted with the collaboration of Deisgnworks, a BMW Group company, which made it possible to achieve the all metal unibody with the curve edges and diamond-cut corners.

ZTE Axon 7 has a lightning fast 0.25 seconds quick fingerprint unlock, which can even be used to take photo and answer the incoming calls. The display is a 2K AMOLED magic-color screen, with 20000:1 ultra-high contrast, 90% high color saturation, and protected using the Corning Gorilla Glass Gen 4 protection. There is a 20 megapixels camera, with large pixels and F1.8 aperture, for vivid photos in high resolution, as well as shaper nigh photography. Further the Dual Image Stabilization with OIS (Optical) and EIS (Electronic) comes with auto scene detection, based on the environment conditions. The Axon 7 from ZTE is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, which is a 14nm processor and provides the most powerful processing while consuming the less power, resulting in longer backup. Further Dual SIM and Dual Standby, USB Type C, and 3250 mAh large capacity step-shaped battery along with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 are there to enhance the smartphone experience.

If you are an Android Enthusiast, and want to Root and Install TWRP recovery on your beloved, then you have landed on the right page. In the due course of the article, we will guiding you through the process to install TWRP and root ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii).

The TWRP features the material design, and attractive user interface (UI), and by following this guide you can install latest TWRP for ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii). You can download TWRP Recovery from the links provided in the pre-requisite section of this article. Kindly note that this is a official TWRP recovery and is only for ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii) (Kindly confirm the model by going to Settings>About). The process given below is merely for rooting and installing TWRP on ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii), do not try out this method on any other device.

If you want to unleash the full potential of the hardware of your ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii), then rooting and flashing the TWRP is the main concern. The Stock ROMs have often limited and unsupported features in the sense of Customization. When you have a rooted device and also flashed TWRP recovery, then you are free to install any Custom ROMs, Mods, Kernel, and Xposed etc., as well as many apps which requires root access to work properly.

Brief Details and Advantage of TWRP Recovery

TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project) is an open source, community development project. By flashing the TWRP, your device will be enabled to install any custom firmware, rooting your smartphone, mod zip files for customizations, Xposed Modules for customized features, one click root and unroot processes. Apart from that, it allows you to take Full Nandroid Backup and restore it later, one click image file flashing, remove bloatware, overclock and underclock. Using TWRP, one can easily clean Wipe, Cache and Data after flashing any image file to reflect the changes and rectify minor errors due to cache.

For installing the TWRP, your ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii) phone must have the Unlocked bootloader. That means you have to firstly unlock the bootloader to root your device as well doing any customization.

Prerequiste

Ensure to check your model number, which must be:

• ZTE Axon 7 (Codename: ailsa_ii)

You must have to ensure that prior to rooting your phone , you have read thoroughly the disclaimer and you agree to proceed further on your risk.

• Phone Should be Charged

Your phone must be 70% charged atleast else, it may lead to complications sometimes while experimenting. Why to take risk, try to charge it fully.

• Back Up

If you are either going to root your phone or install a Custom ROM, it is a good habit to make a back up of your phone. Make a back up of all your media like images, videos and all on your PC and your contacts on Cloud.

• Enable USB Debugging

You must enable USB debugging option by going in to Settings, Applications and Developer options.

Downloads For Rooting ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii)

Steps to Flash/ Install TWRP 3.4.0 on ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii)

Step 1: Assuming you have already downloaded the platform-tools from Android SDK (SDK Manager) platform-tools on your PC. The platform-tools contains the required adb and fastboot binaries.

Step 2: Make sure that the drivers are installed on your computer. Then, skip to the next step.

Note: If Developer Settings and USB Debugging settings are already enabled on your device, as suggested in Prerequisite section, then simply skip the Step 3 and Step 4, and follow Step 5 directly.

Step 3: Now, enable the developer settings on your ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii) Device. To achieve the same, just navigate to the Settings -> About and then find the ‘Build Number ‘, and then tap on ‘Build Number’ for 7 times, this will enable the developer settings on your device.

Step 4: If you have USB Debugging already, then skip this step. If you have not, then open the Developer Options and then enable USB debugging option.

Step 5: Now, open the command prompt in computer/ ADB Terminal, and simply type the command:

adb reboot bootloader

Step 6: Your device should have not entered into fastboot mode. Now copy the TWRP.img file downloaded in prerequisite section, to the same folder where adb and fastboot binaries are located. Rename the file to ‘twrp.img’ and then enter this command:

fastboot flash recovery twrp.img

and then run this command, type:

fastboot reboot

Step 7 (Important): Some devices might not replace the custom recovery automatically during the first boot. You can search Google for key combinations to enter your device into recovery mode. After running the ‘fastboot reboot’ command, press and hold the proper key combination to enter device into TWRP Mode. Once the device boots to TWRP mode, the TWRP will automatically patch the stock ROM, to prevent the chances of replacing TWRP with Stock Recovery.

After typing fastboot reboot, hold the key combo and boot to TWRP. Once TWRP is booted, TWRP will patch the stock ROM to prevent the stock ROM from replacing TWRP. If you don’t follow this step, you will have to repeat the install.

Procedure to Root ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii)/ Install SuperSU

Make sure that you have downloaded SuperSU (link in pre-requisite section of this article). Then, proceed to the steps.

Step 1: Transfer the downloaded SuperSU.zip file to the internal storage / SD card of your ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii) smartphone.

Step 2: Now, just boot into the recovery. From the TWRP interface, you can optionally backup the Stock ROM. Though, I would recommend to backup the Stock ROM. Because if in case process gets failed, you can flash the Stock ROM.

Step 3: Tap on Install ‘, and then navigate to the file ‘SuperSU.zip’ and swipe to confirm flash (located at the bottom of the screen). The flashing process of SuperSU has been started and will take few seconds to complete.

Congratulations, now you have rooted ZTE Axon 7 (ailsa_ii) and also flashed the TWRP. Now, you can install Xposed Framework, and customize your smartphone as per your preference. If you wish to verify, you may download and check the Root Status through Root Checker app.