I’d like to see Xiaomi enter the US market (which is in dire need of more competition) with their smartphones. BBK Electronics (owner of Oppo, Vivo, etc.) was able to break into the US with OnePlus as a new brand in 2014. Xiaomi could probably succeed using the same playbook.
Xiaomi phones can have their bootloader unlocked, which allows users to install custom operating systems such as LineageOS. This requires filling out a form and waiting a week, which is less than ideal, but still better than the many phone manufacturers that don’t allow their phones’ bootloaders to be unlocked at all.
In my experience it’s not a week. Usually it unlocks right away, but they only allow 1 unlock per account per month. And the software to unlock is windows only sadly.
they claim it’s to prevent rebranding, so a local store or small company can’t unlock a large number of phones, install another OS on them, and then sell them as Xiaomi phones. it’s a shame they don’t do as OnePlus does.
Interesting. Though I’m not sure why they’re so keen on preventing that, at least from a pure business perspective, since they’re still getting sales if rebranders exist. Admittedly I don’t know what the ethical or consumer side implications of this are, maybe they’re doing consumers a favour by restricting in this way, maybe not. Anyone want to weigh in?
Probably a case of “takes one to know one”, i.e. they have some sort of profitable deals for pre-loading apps on their phones and don’t want them to be wiped easily.
yeah, Xiaomi isn’t exactly against bloatware, otherwise they wouldn’t be installing every single google app as a system app with no option of deletion xD
Maybe. I unlocked my Fairphone’s bootloader by entering the IMEI into their site and instantly getting the unlock code. I don’t see why they didn’t just do it that way, even if they want analytics.
Both my Oppo Find 7 and first generation Pixel actually didn’t need any actions to unlock outside the phone itself and the Fastboot CLI tool, which, I’m not familiar with what the security implications are for that, but it’s why I didn’t even know that needing to go to the manufacturer’s website to unlock was a common thing until I got my Fairphone.
I’d like to see Xiaomi enter the US market (which is in dire need of more competition) with their smartphones. BBK Electronics (owner of Oppo, Vivo, etc.) was able to break into the US with OnePlus as a new brand in 2014. Xiaomi could probably succeed using the same playbook.
Xiaomi phones can have their bootloader unlocked, which allows users to install custom operating systems such as LineageOS. This requires filling out a form and waiting a week, which is less than ideal, but still better than the many phone manufacturers that don’t allow their phones’ bootloaders to be unlocked at all.
In my experience it’s not a week. Usually it unlocks right away, but they only allow 1 unlock per account per month. And the software to unlock is windows only sadly.
I do wonder why they do that. Like, I can’t think of any business reason.
they claim it’s to prevent rebranding, so a local store or small company can’t unlock a large number of phones, install another OS on them, and then sell them as Xiaomi phones. it’s a shame they don’t do as OnePlus does.
Interesting. Though I’m not sure why they’re so keen on preventing that, at least from a pure business perspective, since they’re still getting sales if rebranders exist. Admittedly I don’t know what the ethical or consumer side implications of this are, maybe they’re doing consumers a favour by restricting in this way, maybe not. Anyone want to weigh in?
they say it’s intended to stop unofficial resellers from installing bloated ROMs. you can read more about it at the bottom of this page: https://c.mi.com/thread-2262302-1-0.html#replybtn_11131246
Probably a case of “takes one to know one”, i.e. they have some sort of profitable deals for pre-loading apps on their phones and don’t want them to be wiped easily.
yeah, Xiaomi isn’t exactly against bloatware, otherwise they wouldn’t be installing every single google app as a system app with no option of deletion xD
Maybe some metrics?
Maybe. I unlocked my Fairphone’s bootloader by entering the IMEI into their site and instantly getting the unlock code. I don’t see why they didn’t just do it that way, even if they want analytics.
Both my Oppo Find 7 and first generation Pixel actually didn’t need any actions to unlock outside the phone itself and the Fastboot CLI tool, which, I’m not familiar with what the security implications are for that, but it’s why I didn’t even know that needing to go to the manufacturer’s website to unlock was a common thing until I got my Fairphone.
The unlock needs nonFree software and making an account in a untrustable and nonFree service.
Main software is only for Windows, where, with certain exception, I got a one running in GNU/Linux for the case of a friend but was also nonFree.
Instead of this, I would prefer to buy Le ECO Le 2 x520 (or any other supported by LineageOS) which can be unlocked directly from Fastboot.