Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

sammyguru.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 254 posts

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#231

Post by mrheosuper »

mschuster91 wrote: post #205
mrheosuper wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are countless decent android tablet not from Samsung. Lenovo, oppo, oneplus, xiaomi.

Oppo is Chinese, so is Oneplus, so is Xiaomi - those are what I meant with "alibaba garbage", especially when it comes to performance. I don't trust either of these brands to deliver updates on time or for more than two years, spare parts just the same, and that's before the question if one wants a brand that may be targeted by US sanctions like Huawei, locking the user out of Play Services. With Samsung there are es…

what do you mean "alibaba garbage", Have you checked them ?

The lenovo 12.7 pro 2025 has D8300 cpu, which is on par with QC 8g2. Oppo Pad flagship using 8 elite CPU, and you still think they have trouble with performance ?

What a fucking nonsense.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#232

Post by hypercube33 »

Ambroos wrote: post #83
aeblyve wrote: post #23

The writing's been on the wall for custom ROMs in general for a while, so I've been starting to think about a mobile phone vendor I could actually have a decent business relationship with. I.e. use their stock ROM and be fairly happy with it. Any opinions? Samsung was a candidate for their somewhat unified ecosystem. Maybe even apple.

I still really like Sony phones. Excellent hardware. They have no online services they are trying to push, they just want you to buy their phones. As a result, the stock software is very clean Google Android without much extra. But they're not available in every region, and quite expensive. Used to have very short software support but now they do 4 major Android version updates / 6 years of security updates. You get…

Do they work well on the big US carriers? Especially the ones starting with V?

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#233

Post by karambanoonoo »

microtonal wrote: post #110
pentamassiv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairphone does! https://www.fairphone.com/en/bootloader-unlocking-code-for-f...

Unfortunately, it's hard to make Fairphone secure. No separate secure element (so much easier to do brute force PIN attacks) and always lags in monthly security bulletin patches and major OS releases (remember that the monthly patches typically only address high/critical vulnerabilities, for the rest you need OS updates, QPRs, etc.). Until Graphene works out the deal with the OEM that they are talking to, Pixel is pr…

Does that mean Graphene plans to support phones from other manufacturers than Google?

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#234

Post by theandrewbailey »

mvdtnz wrote: post #143
observationist wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic rock complicated. Grog say Grug too dumb to do magic rock right, so only Grog have secret magic rock key. Grug pay Grog many shiny rock for make magic rock work, or Grog use key and magic rock stop working.

What?

https://grugbrain.dev/

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#235

Post by theandrewbailey »

NoGravitas wrote: post #223
codedokode wrote: post #164

It is getting incredibly difficult to obtain a non-backdoored smartphone nowadays. I tried to find which phones support alternative OSes, without Google control and telemetry, but it turned out that alternative OSes (LineageOS, PostmarketOS, Graphenos) support mostly support outdated models and it makes no sense to buy them. There is also "Google Pixel", but the prices start at around $600 which is 3 times more than…

GrapheneOS supports the newest Pixels, and only the Pixels that are still getting updates from Google. Right now the least bad option is probably a one-generation-old NOS or Open Box Pixel with GrapheneOS.

I did this. I got an open box Pixel 9A at Best Buy for $450 about a month ago. I immediately installed GrapheneOS on it.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#236

Post by guerrilla »

dotancohen wrote: post #81
guerrilla wrote: post #9

Exactly. This is why I won't buy from these companies even when conditions look good. It'll be bait and switch every sigle time. Fairphone all the way.

When Fairphone comes out with a phone with an EMR stylus built in, I'll be the first in line.

That's very picky. I'm sure there are better ways to solve your problem.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#237

Post by ralferoo »

sunaookami wrote: post #105
zxcvgm wrote: post #54

Xiaomi apparently have also stopped unlocking their bootloaders, so the "workaround" was to go to an official store and ask them perform a downgrade, and before the staff can relock the bootloader, grab the phone and run: https://x.com/kobe_koto/status/1949154478298456531 Absolutely hilarious.

It's still possible outside of China but you have to have a Mi account and for newer phones you have to make some forum posts or some dumb shit.

I did that years ago when I bought a Redmi Note 4 in Shenzhen and discovered that the Chinese ROM is very locked down. I created the Mi post, but I don't remember having to make a forum post (although it does ring a slight bell). AFAIK it was just sending a DM to support on the forum / app to explain why you needed to install the Global ROM rather than the Chinese ROM (and being a foreigner was accepted as a valid reason). About a day later they unlocked the phone bootloader remotely, and then I could install any version of the Global ROM I wanted.

I've bought all my subsequent ones (Note 5, Note 8, Note 11, Note 12Pro) in either HK or UK so they all came with the Global ROM, and I've not felt the need to unlock any of them, so not tried to process since. But it definitely used to be pretty easy.

I suspect the reason for the weird process is legal to ensure that phones in China don't get unlocked in order to circumvent content controls.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#238

Post by dotancohen »

guerrilla wrote: post #236
dotancohen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Fairphone comes out with a phone with an EMR stylus built in, I'll be the first in line.

That's very picky. I'm sure there are better ways to solve your problem.

Jim not sure what you're getting at. Right now I'm stuck in the Samsung ecosystem because the S Ultra devices are the only devices that have a built in EMR stylus. They're great devices, I'm not complaining, but diversity and other options would be nice.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#239

Post by ralferoo »

lawlessone wrote: post #136
sunaookami wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still possible outside of China but you have to have a Mi account and for newer phones you have to make some forum posts or some dumb shit.

I did that a few years ago. Had to download some tool to my PC. Then make a request that takes 2 weeks to go through. and enter the or whatever (this was like 2016 or something). Whole process was clearly designed to make you give up. Their phones where junk then though and i just got something else in the end. They're a lot better now so actually unlocking it is probably worth something now.

When you say junk then, I find that interesting as my first was a Redmi Note 4 launched in 2016, that I got in 2017 (and did this unlock process on, as I bought it in China), and the reason I got that phone in particular was its price (in the UK it was £120, in China I got it slightly cheaper at 1100 CNY) and that it was actually the fastest Android phone available at the time according to the AnTuTu benchmarks.

The modern Redmi Note series is usually a generation behind on performance now, but I keep buying them as they're still faster than I need and there's always still a decent phone less than £150. Only complaint is with the camera, which never seems to get any better even when they claim to have upgraded it.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#240

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

internetter wrote: post #82
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung botched UI 7.0.[1] Their approach to UI 8.0 is more of the same. Removing features is one thing, this is something worse. [1] https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S22/One-UI-7-0-Up...

I'm guessing this is your post? Way too anacdoal to make generalizations to OneUI 7.0 as a whole (and, expecting the demands to work in a community forum is funny, and, was the prompt "hey chatGPT, write a frustrated forum post?")

No. I could have picked dozens of other posts.
Post reply on HN