Have you ever thought of changing your Android mobile or tablet device model? Actually you can change your Android device model very easily and this is helpful in some cases – for example you can make your device appear to be another particular device to any app. Or ever you faced any device restriction on Google Play while installing an app or game? For example a game developer can restrict your device from installing a particular game and make it available on other high-end devices like Galaxy Note 3 (just example) on Google Play just because that game isn’t optimized for your device or may run poorly. But there’s a big chance that your device could play that game. Now if you change your device model to Galaxy Note 3, you will be able to install that game from store – though it may not run well. Or you may want to show a different device model to an app for achieving something.

Things you Need

1. Phone must be rooted.
2. A File Manager with root support and built-in text editor.

Changing Device Model or Brand by Editing Build.prop File

For this procedure, I’ll use a free and powerful file-manager app X-plore. It’s a dual panel file explorer with root support and in-built text editor including many other features.

1. After downloading and installing X-plore, open it up, go to “Configuration” > “Root Access” and make it “Superuser + Mount writable” (assuming your phone is pre-rooted).

Enable Root and Mount

2. Now from /(Root) drive, locate /system folder. You should able to see a file named build.prop in that directory. This file contains some text strings used by OS and other apps to identify some of device’s information. Now long press on it, choose ‘Edit text’. Now you are ready to edit the file. Here, in lines, look for ro.product.model=**** and ro.product.manufacturer=****. Now change the value to any name after “=” as you want your device pretend to be. For example if you want your device pretend to be Galaxy S5(model SM-G900), the lines should be followings:

ro.product.model=SM-G900
ro.product.manufacturer=Samsung

You can set any name or number here though.

Changing device model by editing build.prop

3. Now before closing the editor, got to options then save it. Or you should be asked if you close the editor without saving it. After successfully saving it, restart your device now. Now you have finished changing your device model.

It should reflect “About Device” info in Android settings too like following:

Changed device name reflected in About Device

Note: Your network operator will see your fake model and vendor.

BTW, though it’s very easy to change or fake your Android mobile or tablet model, I wouldn’t recommend doing it unless you really need it. Because it may introduce malfunction to your device including existing apps incompatibility.

Author: 

Jaber is a Programmer and Tech Enthusiast Geek from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is the founder and Chief-Editor of TechGainer. While he is away from his keyboard, either he's fishing or messing with wildlife. In case, you can contact him at rijans[at]techgainer[dot]com.