A couple of weeks ago we reported that if you were thinking of purchasing the Pixel phones from Verizon, you might be in for a rude surprise to learn that the bootloaders on the phones will be locked. So what can you do about it? We’re not sure if Verizon ever plans on changing their policy, but if you want a Pixel phone with an unlocked bootloader, you’ll have to buy it from Google.According to Android.WonderHowTo, they have confirmed with Google that the bootloaders on the Pixel phones bought directly from them will be unlockable. This is according to Google spokesperson Iska Saric who said, “Yes, Pixel owners who purchased the device from the Google store will be able to root their devices. Pixel phones purchased from the Google store will ship with an unlockable bootloader.”
So what does this mean? As we had previously covered, an unlocked bootloader means that users will have deeper access to their phones than from before. Users will be able to do more with their phones and run tweaks/tools that might require superuser/admin privileges, such as installing custom ROMs and so on.
For the average Android user who doesn’t bother with these kinds of things, we guess it probably won’t matter, but if you fancy yourself a tinkerer then perhaps purchasing the phone directly from Google might be a better idea.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Google, Google Pixel and Rooting.