TL;DR
- ASUS has apparently withdrawn the ability to unlock the bootloader on its phones.
- As per the company’s technical support team, Zenfone 10 and Zenfone 9 users
ASUS is apparently killing the posibility of me being a potential customer of their smartphones.
ASUS annihilated the possibility I’d ever buy any ASUS product after the way they handled the 7800X3D/AM5 VoC issue. I had never really noticed, but a pretty big swathe of my tech came from them (laptop, monitor, and motherboard among others) but no more.
It’s a big company. Lots of people in lots of departments doing lots of different things. Do you swear off Samsung memory or flash because of their practices around their TV’s or refrigerators?
If the refrigerant on my fridge leaked and they refused to fix it, I’d sure swear off their ACs too, yeah.
Well there goes any compelling reason to buy their phones lol
I was genuinely thinking about going with an ASUS phone next because of the unlockable bootloader, this really sucks to see.
There are plenty of makers doing unlockable bootloaders. Honestly, just avoid Samsung.
Same here. Well they lost a potential costumer.
Yeah no reasons besides only tiny stuff like being only flagship under 6", better speakers than samsung, better cooling and less throttling than samsung, headphone jack, near stock android. More like there are no compelling reasons to root anymore, enjoy your 1k samsung throttling tho
2 years of updates means you’ll quickly end up with a phone that’s waiting to be hacked
They offer 4 years of security updates, what are you on about? It’s even better than sony
Well it’s better but it’s still not enough imo.
People shouldn’t be left behind on security just because they don’t have the latest phone, 4 years isn’t long at all.
Now phones are powerful enough to last years, and could last even longer with replaceable batteries. This artificial limitation is anti-customer.
So yeah at least there should be an way to root and install custom ROMs, they may not want to support phones longer officially but they shouldn’t limit the user if they want to do it themselves.
DAE 10 years of support for 800€ ?
They don’t have to support it 10 years, but they shouldn’t prevent people to keep their phones updated themselves with custom ROMs.
Ah the peak of security, third party custom roms. Accept your hobby isnt popular and move on, grown ups like their banking apps working
I remember owning their Transformer tablet back when Honeycomb first launched.
Considering their crappy major release and security update support, rooting and flashing custom images is basically a requirement.
And there I was seriously considering getting one. Greed is ruining good things again.
Again? I didn’t realize the ride had stopped for a bit. .
This is such an anti-consumer move, by refusing to unlock the bootloader Asus hinders the ability of users to extend their devices’ life beyond Asus’s original support window by flashing alternative ROMs…
I’d like to see right to repair laws expanded to right to unlock. I think you could make a reasonable argument that a working device that’s not receiving security updates is just as broken as a device that’s experienced a hardware failure.
As much as I agree, I don’t think our legislators are knowledgable enough to be able to handle the issue, and majority of the users don’t care enough to push for something like this. This isn’t like USB-C vs Lightning where users are sick of buying cables and chargers, so the issue is much more visible.
Locked bootloader and only 2 years of upgrades? Is not like Zenfones are cheap either. Hard pass!
Simple fix: stop buying Asus phones. Once their profit drops they will let you unlock bootloader
Do consumer friendly phones exist at this point?
Pixel phones are the few ones that you can unlock the bootloader and lock again.
Sony allows unlocking the bootloader on a lot of their devices. Except two new US-specific models, according to their site.
fairphone is fully repairable and rootable
Boo you whore. Asus really is just kicking itself in the dick the last 5 years or so.
Yeah, don’t have one of these, but I was looking at one before settling on a Pixel 7 Pro instead. Have had some sketchy interactions with Asus regarding support and warranty in the past. Might be looking elsewhere in the future where ever Asus is an option. I really don’t like they changing promises retroactively.
This is exactly why I sent my Zenphone 9 back. Shame because it was such a good little phone and one of the few flagships with a headphone jack.
The end of an era. Companies also locked the bootloader back then and you’ll need to find a vulnerability to exploit in order to unlock it. When custom roms starting to become popular, companies relaxed their stance and allowing their customers to unlock the bootloader using an official channel instead of utilizing a security exploits, perhaps as a competitive advantage so power users would recommend them to their friends and family.
Now with declining popularity of rooting and custom roms, companies are starting to stop allowing their customers to unlock the bootloader again. From their perspective, allowing bootloader unlocking is nothing but trouble (support-wise) and might even cannibalize sales (why upgrade your phone every two years when you can install a custom ROM with the latest version of Android), so declining popularity of custom ROMs is a perfect excuse for them to stop allowing bootloader unlocking.
It should be illegal to restrict what people can do with their own goddamn motherfucking private property.
You will own nothing and be happy.
Once digital media got away with “actually we are just letting you borrow it and can take it away whenever we want”, hardware manufacturers have been drooling to do the same. Apple and game console manufacturers are most of the way there already.
I suspect we’ll eventually need to create a standard much like th PC Clone, in which hardware, OS and software are independently produced and support compatibility standards.
Not in the current clime of unregulate capitalism, though.
I’m afraid the PC ecosystem is one-of-a-kind, and perhaps once it’s gone, we’ll never have anything like it again. Companies are obsessed with vertical integration now, owning everything from software to peripherals and accessories. The closest thing we have to PC ecosystem where multiple independent companies works to support a single platform is perhaps the raspberry pi ecosystem, but even then it’s pale in comparison to the PC ecosystem in term of variety and number of manufacturers.
It’s my device. I will do with it whatever the fuck I desire
I dropped OnePlus for this reason last year, after having 5 models starting the OnePlus 1, and ending with the 8T. Apart from OxygenOS being a buggy mess, I should be able to do what I want with my phone’s software
Got any recommendations? I’ve been with them for 3 phones starting on 2 and I’m thinking on replacing my 6. I was already looking at other companies but not sure who would be good.
oneplus 11 is going to get lineages soon
its actually in beta rn
… aaaand another brand I’ll be avoiding when looking for a new phone. In my eyes a phone that can’t be rooted is kind of like a computer without access to an administrator account - you can do stuff with it, but at one point your hands are tied.
Looks like my current Zenfone running LineageOS is my last Zenfone.
