[Miscellaneous Android Development] JMailuhu:
Getting Started

USE AT OWN RISK! I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR BRICKS THAT MIGHT OCCUR UPON FLASHING. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!.

Before doing any flashing with your Acer Liquid Z500 you'll need to Root your device and flash a custom recovery. This is mandatory for flashing Custom Roms and making Backups.

Rooting may void your warranty, though this is localized and may not apply for your area/country. Here, in The Netherlands, rooting your android phone has been approved legal by the government, thus keeping your warranty if you need to return your device to the manufacturer.

This does NOT apply for flashing Custom Recovery's, therefore you need to flash back to the stock recovery.

Rooting:

First we want to Root our phone. We need KingoRoot for that. You can find it in my attachment in the post above. I haven't used the Android version, so i´ll only guide you through the windows version of KingoRoot.

People without a PC can try the provided KingoRoot_Android.zip, but i cannot guarantee it will work as i haven't tested it myself.

01) Go to your device settings and select 'Device Info'. Scroll down and tap the 'Build Number' 5x until you've unlocked 'Developer Options' displayed in a toast.

02) Go to 'Settings/Developer Options' and check 'USB Debugging Enabled' you are now ready to receive additional usb drivers and adb has full access to change files.

03) Connect your phone to your computer with a USB cable and wait until it's finished installing drivers.

03) Download and install KingoRoot for windows .

04) Run KingoRoot, the program itself is pretty self explanatory. Just click 'ROOT' and wait until the program has finished flashing. It will reboot your device automaticly on success and superuser app called 'KingUser' will be installed with it. If you don't like it you can try SuperUser or SuperSU from the playstore. (Make sure you've granted them SU_Access with KingUser before you remove KingUser)

05) You are now ready to flash a Custom Recovery.

Custom Recovery:

Now we need a Custom Recovery. We can use SP FlashTool to do that or we can use MobileUncle MTK Tools. I'm going with the latter because it's more user friendly instead of going through SPFT & Scatter Files. I haven't tried 'Flashify' or 'Rashr Flash Tool' for flashing Recovery's on MTK devices.

01) Download CTR or CWM Custom Recovery's from the above post. Make sure they are located at the root of your SDCard. Move/Paste them from /Download folder if necessary.

02) Download MobileUncle from my attachment or download it from the Google PlayStore.

03) Grand SU_Access to MobileUncle and select 'Flash Firmware'.

04) Your downloaded Custom Recovery's will be shown (if moved propertly to root of SD) select it and click 'Flash'.

05) Reboot into your new Custom Recovery automaticly --when prompted to do so--, or do it manually by turning phone off/on with 'Vol+ (Up) & Power' and select 'Recovery' in acer menu (apply/select with Vol- (Down))

06) Now make a nand/stock backup of your current (Stock) ROM.

07) When leaving Custom Recovery for the 1st time, it might ask you '

Rebooting device might change Recovery to Stock, want to fix it?

' reply with Yes.

Flashing Custom ROMs:

Flashing a custom rom is easy. And if you perform everything right, you won't have to worry that you'll brick your device. I've tested most of the ROMs by myself, i can assure you that it's a save deal, just follow the instructions carefully.

01) Download a Custom ROM of your preference (See Post #3) Click the HIDE button to see additional Info and Instructions (which are taken directly from their FB page).

02) Reboot into Recovery and make a backup of your current rom.

03) Do a full cache/data/system wipe and wipe dalvik.

04) Select 'Install zip from sdcard' and select your downloaded rom.

05) Wait until it's finished flashing.

06) Reboot your device and enjoy!

Unbrick / Flashing Stock Firmware:

I haven't had the pleasure yet to unbrick any MTK device (a good thing, right!?), so i'm a little scarse to give any info onto how to perform such tasks with SPFT as someone who has experienced it by hand.

Neither have i re-flashed to Stock Firmware, because on all the MTK devices i've used, any Custom ROM for those devices worked flawlessly.

Check out the Acer thread by [MENTION=4493088]Shreps[/MENTION] for detailed instructions on how to restore and unbrick your acer phone. This method works for various Acer models.

http://xdaforums.com/android/development/guide-firmwares-roms-cwm-root-acer-mtk-t2945933