14 replies to this topic

[tucstwo]

Another fun front page poll. Enjoy

[Thach]

Even if the bootloader is locked, if there is enough dev support it can make for a great experience. I think the Razr and Bionic are both indications of that. We have grown to make the best of most situations and thats what helps these devices thrive. SOOOOO, while I do like the unlocked bootloader, its not really something that I NEED as long as the devs are there. All credit in the world to the devs we have that are plugging away at these locked up devices and givingus a little something that we otherwise couldnt have.

[RikRong]

I actually chose the M because of its size, but since that wasn't a choice, I picked "battery life."

[usmcamgrimm]

One of my choices was "Manufacturer." I'm sticking with Moto because the build quality of their phones is superb...unlike my wife's plastic GNex

[captmilk]

One of my choices was "Manufacturer." I'm sticking with Moto because the build quality of their phones is superb...unlike my wife's plastic GNex

I love moto as well, but i'll admit that when my wife got her S3 i was a little jealous. That things is fast and super thing. Even though it's mostly plastic you can tell it's well made.

[wabmorgan]

Really ??? Who voted Iphone ???? Fail.

[Hero_Indeed]

Wow, I have to say I am a little bit surprised by some of these results. I would have thought bootloader would have been on top, than dev community

[Thach]

Wow, I have to say I am a little bit surprised by some of these results. I would have thought bootloader would have been on top, than dev community

Just goes to show that even if the bootloader is locked, the device can live well as long as there is dev support. With the things that we have been given on the razr, it has really made me more comfortable with having locked bootloaders. Not that I like them locked because i would prefer them not to be. But the devs make things way more bearable.

[johnlgalt]

I have 2 locked bootloader devices - BIONIC and Infinity - and like Thach, I'd prefer to have them unlocked, but...My BIONIC is a beast in terms of what it does and how I use it and my Infinity - well, other than internal storage being crap for access, with my pair of UHS-1 64 GB Micro SDCards I'm set.

[useltonm]

Even if the bootloader is locked, if there is enough dev support it can make for a great experience. I think the Razr and Bionic are both indications of that. We have grown to make the best of most situations and thats what helps these devices thrive. SOOOOO, while I do like the unlocked bootloader, its not really something that I NEED as long as the devs are there. All credit in the world to the devs we have that are plugging away at these locked up devices and givingus a little something that we otherwise couldnt have.

While I agree in principle due to my Bionic, I won't buy another phone with a locked bootloader. I miss the days of my OG Droid and having the ability to flash whatever I wanted to it. There were so many options out there and you didn't have to worry about having cameras, bluetooth, or anything else like that not working because devs weren't hamstrung by a locked bootloader.

I really appreciate all the work that goes into creating roms and I can't even begin to fathom how much work must be put into these roms to get them to work properly on locked devices.

[Thach]

While I agree in principle due to my Bionic, I won't buy another phone with a locked bootloader. I miss the days of my OG Droid and having the ability to flash whatever I wanted to it. There were so many options out there and you didn't have to worry about having cameras, bluetooth, or anything else like that not working because devs weren't hamstrung by a locked bootloader.

I really appreciate all the work that goes into creating roms and I can't even begin to fathom how much work must be put into these roms to get them to work properly on locked devices.

I think what holds me over and makes it easier is also having the N7. I am able too get the customizing and everything out of my system through that.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[useltonm]

I think what holds me over and makes it easier is also having the N7. I am able too get the customizing and everything out of my system through that.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

But doesn't that frustrate you that you can't have the same customizations on your phone? There really is no reason to have a locked bootloader. The people that don't care about customization couldn't even tell you what having a locked bootloader means. The majority of people that will actually make use of the unlocked bootloader are people that care about all the glorious capabilities having an unlocked bootloader means. They aren't people that are going to use it for nefarious purposes. And isn't that the whole argument by service providers? That phones with unlocked bootloaders will be used to cause harm to their network? They really only want to be able to force their bloat on you. They claim they can't provide customer service to people with unlocked bootloaders because they have no idea what could be causing the issue. It would be simple enough to allow all phones to be unlocked and just stipulate that they aren't responsible for supplying tech support if you unlock it. Hell, they could even offer (for an extra charge) software support to people who jack up their unlocked phones. That would be a win-win for everyone.

[Thach]

But doesn't that frustrate you that you can't have the same customizations on your phone? There really is no reason to have a locked bootloader. The people that don't care about customization couldn't even tell you what having a locked bootloader means. The majority of people that will actually make use of the unlocked bootloader are people that care about all the glorious capabilities having an unlocked bootloader means. They aren't people that are going to use it for nefarious purposes. And isn't that the whole argument by service providers? That phones with unlocked bootloaders will be used to cause harm to their network? They really only want to be able to force their bloat on you. They claim they can't provide customer service to people with unlocked bootloaders because they have no idea what could be causing the issue. It would be simple enough to allow all phones to be unlocked and just stipulate that they aren't responsible for supplying tech support if you unlock it. Hell, they could even offer (for an extra charge) software support to people who jack up their unlocked phones. That would be a win-win for everyone.

There are points where yes it does frustrate me that I can't do the same things to my phone that I can with my N7. I don't agree with locking phones up they way they have been and I have signed petition after petition. All your points are valid and I agree with them. I have never once believed the whole "people with unlocked phones can cause harm or mess up their phones" argument. There are apps that go live on the play store which you don't have to be rooted for that can do the same things. I've read about apps that are harmful all the time. I really wish I knew why their stance on bootloaders is the way it is. If we are really that small of a community as its said we are, there really can't be that much harm. I think if anything, we save money because we tend to be able to correct our own issues instead of having to send devices in. My wife doesnt root her phones and won't let me. She has gone through 5x the phones that i have.

[johnlgalt]

But doesn't that frustrate you that you can't have the same customizations on your phone? There really is no reason to have a locked bootloader. The people that don't care about customization couldn't even tell you what having a locked bootloader means. The majority of people that will actually make use of the unlocked bootloader are people that care about all the glorious capabilities having an unlocked bootloader means. They aren't people that are going to use it for nefarious purposes. And isn't that the whole argument by service providers? That phones with unlocked bootloaders will be used to cause harm to their network? They really only want to be able to force their bloat on you. They claim they can't provide customer service to people with unlocked bootloaders because they have no idea what could be causing the issue. It would be simple enough to allow all phones to be unlocked and just stipulate that they aren't responsible for supplying tech support if you unlock it. Hell, they could even offer (for an extra charge) software support to people who jack up their unlocked phones. That would be a win-win for everyone.

Yes, to an adept user like me it is frustrating beyond belief.

But let's look at this scenario. I'm using a real life example with the names and places changed to protect the innocent(ly naive).

So, I'm happily running along with my OG DROID in class one day, about 6 months or so after it came out, and there are a few students in there. The teacher asks about a new phone for her daughter and a student in the back says get a Droid, I say they don't make the droid anymore, but there are other Android phones out there. He says, yeah, they're called Droids, and he knows. I pull up 17 different web pages where an Android phone is not referred to as a Droid except for the VZW marketing which has different Droid-branded phones, and there were two at the time, IIRC - the DInc and the ...something else.

Another example - overheard a couple of students talking - One had just gotten a new Android phone and another had had one for about a week - the weeklong owner was showing this ne guy how to root his phone and overclock it and install themes and such, but without any of the background reading that came with it. Incidentally, both users ended up replacing their phones multiple times.

My point is that your average user is not all that sophisticated / educated, and without having these checks in place the company is gonna get burned - they did so royally with the OG DROID line - I can't count the number of times someone posted over at AF on how to restore the OG DROID to stock so it could be turned in for warranty replacement. More than 70% of them were requests from people who were Overclocking and running cutoms ROMs and doing things like changing settings that affected how the hardware was used. And if it is restored back to stock before being sent in for replacement, then yes, they're right - they cannot evaluate it and know what could have been the cause for the replacement, which may in fact have been a violation of the ToS of the warranty.

By offering an easy method to allow for unlocked bootloaders, they might as well leave the bootloader unlocked and continue to have the same problem with massive amounts of warranty returns. So, in order to minimize warranty replacements, which still *do* cost the Service provider money, whether you agree or not, they opt for putting in place a system that will minimize the customization of these phones.

The flip side is that they also want as much of their bloatware left intact as possible. The flip side to that is that if you do not want their bloatware, either leave their service, or else buy unsubsidized phones.

There are points where yes it does frustrate me that I can't do the same things to my phone that I can with my N7. I don't agree with locking phones up they way they have been and I have signed petition after petition. All your points are valid and I agree with them. I have never once believed the whole "people with unlocked phones can cause harm or mess up their phones" argument. There are apps that go live on the play store which you don't have to be rooted for that can do the same things. I've read about apps that are harmful all the time. I really wish I knew why their stance on bootloaders is the way it is. If we are really that small of a community as its said we are, there really can't be that much harm. I think if anything, we save money because we tend to be able to correct our own issues instead of having to send devices in. My wife doesnt root her phones and won't let me. She has gone through 5x the phones that i have.

An app from the play store that messes up the phone, however, cannot be decreed to be a manufacturer's defect, and thus replaced under warranty. As noted above, if I were to OC the phone and partially fry the CPU, then restore it back to stock, use it for a couple of days, then call up my service provider and complain that the phone keeps rebooting, then what?

[johnlgalt]

Also, FWIW - I have both original Android-based phones I bought - OG DROID and BIONIC. I've ROMd both, OC'd the hell out of the OG (I could do 1200 MHz stable for a few months, but kept it at 100 for most of the duration of my ownership of it, until it retired), and I have never once considered replacing my phone under warranty - partially b/c I know I'd be getting a refurb, and partially b/c even with the BIONICs horrible 4G <--> 3G handshake issues under the original GB systems, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before it was all worked out, and my area did not have 4G at the time so I was barely affected by the problem, unless I traveled to Atlanta.

My BIONIC has taken some damage but I still am not gonna try to replace it. It is not a manufacturer's defect, it was caused by me. However, too many other people don't think that same way.