I'd add that there's a wealth of information (and not just about rooting/unlocking bootloaders) about Android tools, software, development and phone capabilities here:
I am... aware. For a general search on this topic I tend to get results about oneplus, for example, that say that relocking breaks it.
And samsung just won't unlock US models.
And xiaomi factory resets the phone when relocking.
Searching for relock root android gives very unhelpful results in general.
I did learn there's one specific model of motorola where the "lock" just doesn't work, and that's amusing but not very useful.
So I meant your phone specifically. Not just rooting, but rooting with a currently-locked bootloader. Please tell me a little bit about an example where this actually works. And hopefully passes safetynet, and will keep passing safetynet with hardware attestation.
I then variously installed different custom roms (LineageOS, NuSense, ResurrectionRemix) and in between re-flashed the stock rom.
I used SuperSU and AddonSU to root the installed images. Magisk is also a popular rooting tool (AIUI, the MagiskHide component blocks Google Play from identifying the device as rooted as well).
Once I installed TWRP, I was able to do all of those things with a locked bootloader and had zero problems running any Android application.
I'd note that LineageOS[1] supports hundreds of different phones.
Any reasonably tech savvy person can do this fairly easily and a non-tech savvy person can do so with a modicum of effort.
If you're actually interested, I'll happily sell you my services to do this on your phone.
And I promise you that I will charge you an outrageously large amount for those services. It's definitely not worth it, but I'd be happy to take your money.
HTC, interesting. Okay, that's the first brand I've looked into where relocking actually seems viable!
This is not a "how do I root???" situation. You have a much better brand than most people.
And I've used magisk fine, but hardware attestation is rolling out and if anything starts to require that then anyone that can't relock their phone can't fake it. Edit: And it might fail anyway according to https://twitter.com/topjohnwu/status/1278849731305672705?s=1...
Also good luck doing anything with my current phone. After long enough being unable to find a reasonable phone that had 600MHz support, an SD card, and rootability, I gave up and got a samsung. The bootloader won't allow anything.
>Also good luck doing anything with my current phone. After long enough being unable to find a reasonable phone that had 600MHz support, an SD card, and rootability, I gave up and got a samsung. The bootloader won't allow anything.
I did a bunch of research as well, and recently bought a Motorola Edge[0] (not Edge+) which has pretty much everything you mentioned, including support for up to a 1TB SD card.
I haven't rooted it yet, but I should have no problem doing so if/when I decide to do so (when I require a feature I don't have and/or Motorola stops upgrading the OS).
Samsung says[1] there shouldn't be a problem with locking/unlocking the bootloader.
And other sites[2] confirm this for newer Samsung phones.
What's more, there's additional development work[3] on bypassing Safety Net as well.
Even more, moving away from Play Services and installing MicroG[4] addresses the issue as well.
I don't even own a Samsung phone and I found all this out in less than five minutes. I can understand if you don't want to put in the time and effort, but just saying it doesn't work (N.B., you didn't mention the specific Samsung model you have which may complicate things, but none of the info I've seen -- including Samsung's docs -- say that the bootloader can't be unlocked/relocked) when there's ample evidence that most (if not all) Samsung devices can be unlocked/rooted/relocked and still pass safety net checks.
Besides, even if you don't root the device, installing a custom recovery partition will allow nandroid backups[5], which are clearly superior to other backup mechanisms.
Regardless, I hope you get/have the features and performance you desire, and are able to keep using your device long after Samsung stops supporting it (my HTC stopped getting updates with KitKat/4.4 in 2015, but I've continued to update it and currently run LineageOS 17.1/AndroidQ on it), as there's no reason to buy a new phone as long as you can run recent software versions.
In fact, the only reason I purchased a new device was for VoLTE[6] support, which the HTC OneMax doesn't have.
I wish you many years of quality use from your device.
I looked at all the screen defect reports and high price and decided not to risk it.
> Samsung says[1] there shouldn't be a problem with locking/unlocking the bootloader.
> And other sites[2] confirm this for newer Samsung phones.
More specifically, Samsung phones for the US with qualcomm chips cannot be unlocked. The nice little menu option in that article is just not there.
> What's more, there's additional development work[3] on bypassing Safety Net as well.
If they decide to remove the fallback, that method dies.
> I don't even own a Samsung phone and I found all this out in less than five minutes.
The info on samsung models is a mess because they put out almost identical phones with different chipsets and subtly different capabilities.
All the non-US models, almost all with exynos chips, can be unlocked but that does me no good.
> you didn't mention the specific Samsung model you have which may complicate things
S20 FE 5G SM-G781U1 if you really want to know.
> Besides, even if you don't root the device, installing a custom recovery partition will allow nandroid backups[5], which are clearly superior to other backup mechanisms.
>I looked at all the screen defect reports and high price and decided not to risk it.
That concerned me a bit too. I got a deal ($499 IIRC) on the device and decided to risk it.
I've had no screen issues at all and like it a lot. Then again, I've only had it for four months, so I guess we'll see.
>More specifically, Samsung phones for the US with qualcomm chips cannot be unlocked. The nice little menu option in that article is just not there.
You are, of course, absolutely correct. I didn't catch that in my initial search.
That sucks. I'm glad I didn't purchase a Samsung.
I had similar goals as you did in a new device: fast processor, lots of RAM, large internal storage and large SDCard support, long battery life.
I considered another HTC device, but my experience with them dropping support almost immediately (~9 months after I bought it) for upgrades really pissed me off.
And since I'm not going to buy a new phone every year or two (there's no reason to replace a perfectly good phone just because the OEM drops support in an attempt to get you to buy a new one), especially when there are better Android implementations (e.g., LineageOS) without all the bloatware.
As such, rootable/bootloader unlockable was very important to me too.
Maybe I'm just old and crotchety, but I figure that if I purchase a physical product, I should be able to do with it as I choose, without restriction. This whole 'we decide what you can and can't do, and what software you can and can't run with the very expensive device you've "purchased"' schtick is unacceptable to me.
This is yet another area where we need legislation to address this in the US.
I am aware that there are specific FCC regulations that require specific ranges of transceiver power levels and related stuff, but since the baseband processor code is generally proprietary and requires binary blobs from the manufacturer, that really shouldn't be an issue.
Perhaps if we make enough noise, we can make that a reality.
