Last Updated on October 9, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake

The Motorola Phonton Q is one of my favorite device names because it reminds me of something in a comic book — maybe the phantom. The bad new is that you might also finish reading a comic book before you finish this guide after you attempt it because it is so long. There’s nothing particularly trying about it, most of it is classed as fairly straightforward. However, there are many steps that need following before you are finished. Don’t let that deter you though, because when you’re done you won’t regret it one bit.

Firstly, it will need to have an unlocked bootloader. If you don’t have that already you can head to the official Motorola website and find out how the unlock is achieved.

Moto Phonton Q

Details of Note

  • Following this will revoke any warranty that you could have had remaining on this. As a workaround you can try to do this after your warranty is up anyway, so you don’t have anything to lose. Other people view it in the opposite way and think that it’s even more risky to do after the warranty is gone because there’s nobody there to fix it. There’s merit to that way of thinking too, because if something happens, you can simply unroot it and then the warranty is good again. Now you can send it off like you never did anything and it noticed by the team that you ever did anything to it.
  • Because we don’t have the phantom powers, it’s a good idea to back up your data before starting the steps. That way, if it is lost you can put it back on again and there is no big deal.
  • The guide requires you to connect the mobile to the computer. Because of this, you will need to have USB debugging enabled.
  • Give yourself adequate battery life so you don’t run out during the installation. If you do, it can be catastrophic to your device, potentially bricking it.
  • If you use this guide, then install an official firmware over the top of it again the root access will be gone. That’s why it’s a good idea to update to any new software builds before you do it. That way you can be happy with the software in which you are running for longer without being tempted to upgrade it any time soon. On the odd occasion that you do feel like updating sooner than expected, you should always check if there is a new method to get this access because they can often be firmware sensitive.
  • This tutorial is for advanced users. If you are inexperienced you may have difficulties completing this task. All instructions that you are seeing here is for the Phonton Q only and no other handset. If you try to do it on another handset, it will cause damage because it is not made for anything else. These things are always very sensitive.

How to root Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE XT897

1. Download the SuperSU zip file.

2. Download the ClockworkMod image file.

3. Connect the mobile to the computer. Any issues here are often due to the drivers and/or USB debugging.

4. Using the copy and paste feature, transfer the zip files over to the SD card. Do not extract them yet.

5. Power down the phone now and boot it back up into bootloader mode.

6. Inside choose the AP fastboot option.

7. Connect the phone to the computer via USB once more.

8. Open Android SDK platform tools folder and launch the command line.

9. Enter the following commands:

– > fastboot devices
– > fastboot flash recovery cwmrecovery. img

Wait for it to finish.

10. Power down the mobile and this time boot it up into bootloader mode.

11. Select recovery to launch the CWM recovery.

12. From inside here choose the option install from SD card and upload both of the files you downloaded earlier, one by one.

13. Navigate back to the main recovery screen and select reboot system now.

When it reboots itself will now have root access. First time boots can take up to 5 minutes. However, don’t worry because it isn’t like this every time.

Undoing anything that you have done here will always be achieved by going inside of your custom recovery. Whether that is Clockworkmod like in this particular case, or TWRP recovery, it doesn’t matter. Both will be the first step to achieving this.

In terms of troubleshooting, there may be a firewall and antivirus concerns that are stopping you from being successful with your attempts. By disabling these for the time being you are not opening up any vulnerabilities, just by following this guide alone. If you were to start surfing the web, however, then you might not be so lucky. For that reason, as soon as you finish here, just enable it again and use it like you normally would.