[ZTE Maven 3  Questions & Answers] denny777:
I am also looking for a solution to rooting a ZTE maven 3.

I tried rooting with Kingroot on a PC, but Kingroot found no solutions.

I am at the library right now, and just checked out two books on linux. I have a terminal emulator and busybox installed on the maven 3. I'm sure all of that will come in handy.

Going to try a manual root through command prompt on windows while connected with USB. I am worried more than most about bricking this phone though, as even though "its just a $30 phone", I'm pretty broke right now. At what parts during the root should I be worried about the possibility of bricking it?

Edit: I see that two other people in this thread are actively trying to find a solution as well. Hopefully the 3 of us can find a solution today or tomorrow! I can't install anything on this computer, so I'm going to be searching for the fabled 'terminal only' method for rooting; maybe these books will help me write some brute force scripts.. not really sure what I'm doing, but as the expression goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Going to update this post with my step-by-step progress towards finding a terminal-only approach.

Update: Typing ls /dev just gave me about 10 pages of "permission denied."... Lol..

Update: Typing ls /etc lists some interesting files, such as "app_permission_whitelist.xml". If permissions are ultimately given by an .xml file, modifying/replacing the xml file might be a piece of cake.

Update: Abandoned the xml approach. The "chown" command isn't 'permission denied', so my philosophy now is to simply use "chown username filename" every time I see a file that looks like I'd want to have ownership of it, and hopefully this will eventually give me a backdoor into permissions for higher priority files that I was previously denied permissions for.

Update: Trying the xml approach again. The command "cat" allows the user to view xml files right in the terminal. Entering "cat /etc/permissions/filename.xml" prompted a page-long disclaimer in the terminal about copyrights and voiding warranties, followed by the actual contents of the .xml file I entered. I feel as though this must mean I am making progress.

Update: Some of these .xml files when explored with the "cat" command show the disclaimer "AUTOGENERATED DO NOT MODIFY" followed by a string of encrypted or autogenerated data. I may attempt to edit some of these later with a script editor application, with the risk of bricking my device.

Update: My script writing software is being uncooperative. It wants root access. Having difficulty even getting it to open its text editor.. After toying with it for a minute (SManager), I've found that it it can open & modify existing text files but can't create new ones; so I have to copy paste existing text files and edit & rename them to bypass this..

UPDATE: What I'm trying now is to mimic/modify the Google file at /etc/sysconfig/google.xml which whitelists various Android processes allowing them to run as system processes. I should be able to mimic the whitelist parameter, adding exceptions for each of the programs I want to have system priorities, like busybox, or the terminal emulator itself. I'm going to try using a program called SManager to write/modify the xml file. I may have to do this on a computer, and use a program called KillBox to delete the current google.xml file and replace it if I can't edit it. Although this isn't technically rooting, it should give individual programs permissions one at a time tantamount to the device being rooted.

Update: I need to know the 'package name', being the folder name for the applications in the phone's directories, to add to the .xml file I'm writing/modifying. I can't search the phone's files for the package name of course until the phone is rooted, so I'll have to search the internet and possibly try to contact the creators of some of these applications. I can't make a thread here asking for someone with a rooted phone to tell me the package names of applications; could one of you who already have a rooted phone possibly tell me? I need to know the package names for the apps SManager & BusyBox.

Update: Found the package name for SManager (os.tools.scriptmanager) and have my duped whitelist .xml file, but when I try to move it to /etc/sysconfig I get a message saying I can't because it's read only. I was going to use the chmod command to make /etc/sysconfig read-write, but upon using the command to ls -l to check its status, it's already read-write.

My approach now is to copy whatever programs that use the /etc/sysconfig/google.xml file, and create a mock program in a part of the phone's directories I can actually modify and work with. This is probably going to require me downloading the android operating system files and looking at them on a computer.