Very brief piece this one, just wanting to inform our US readership that the Verizon Galaxy SIII comes with locked bootloaders (at Verizons insistance).
So, if you're in the US and wanting to get an SIII, my recommendations for you look like this:
DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE FROM VERIZON.
IF YOU ARE ON VERIZON SWITCH TO ANOTHER PROVIDER.
MAKE SOME NOISE ABOUT THIS IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS.
COMPLAIN TO VERIZON.
COMPLAIN TO YOUR CONGRESSMAN.
Brutal, and terrible. Having lived in the land of locked bootloaders for six months courtesy of Motorola, I can assure the prospective buyer that it is not worth considering at any cost.
ReplyDeleteHopefully some engineering devices will sneak out, and all is not lost.
Though if you never intend rooting your phone, is it really a big deal? Of course there's the principle as well. It's a bit mean to hog tie you when other carriers don't. Of course I don't condone a carrier locking their bootloader, but acknowledge that for some users, a locked bootloader wont interfere with their use of the the SIII.
DeleteThe bootloader on the Galaxy Nexus was locked. Locked bootloader = normal and no big deal. Locked + encrypted = now THAT is a big deal. We need more people hands on with this phone to verify.
ReplyDeleteyour insulting the modding community by saying this. This too shall pass. There is such a HUGE amount of SG3 owners. Probs going to be 20 million people. Sure not all of them verizon but im sure even the guy who helped start CM built the SG3 and i bet he is going to help bypass this
ReplyDeleteSorry, cannot agree at all. I am not insulting the modding community at all, of course there are ways around these things, but often encrypted bootloaders take many, many months to circumvent and the whole while all the owners are lumbered with an inferior device as a result. You can read Supercurio's tweets about it if you want to see what developers think about this.
DeleteCALM DOWN CALM DOWN. It's been unlocked go to Droid-Life and it's right there. I hate when these sites jump to conclusions. Verizon customers don't even have their hands on the S3 yet. So of course this would take the longest to crack.
ReplyDeleteNo conclusions jumped to here, the source is Supercurio. I still stand by my comment that people should not buy this phone from Verizon.
DeleteI am typing this review using a wireless keyboard and mouse on my SG3 with Verizon and I'm very happy. What is a bootloader anyway? No matter what carrier you have the connectivity options on this device are fantastic. Also, if you live in the USA and you want good reliable 4G than Verizon's LTE Newtork is the way to go, I am currently getting 10 down and 10 up I doubt i would get that on AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile
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