14 DAY TRIAL // Next week, mobile phone carrier Verizon Wireless will make the latest flagship Android-based smartphone from Samsung, namely the Galaxy S III, available for its users.
The handset has been available for pre-order for the last several weeks, and is currently shipping to those who reserved it, while being set to hit shelves on July 10th.
Some of those who already received their units had the time to play with them, and are reporting some rather unpleasant features related to the handset’s bootloader.
Apparently, it is a protected one, which means that users won’t be able to tweak their Galaxy S III smartphones as they please.
Of course, that doesn’t make the action impossible, as enthusiasts and modders are certain to find a way to crack the protection, but it will be a bit more difficult than originally expected. Galaxy S III has already landed on shelves at other wireless carriers in the United States, where it did not feature a locked bootloader, as Verizon’s model does.
Clearly, users were expecting a similar situation at Big Red too, but the operator seems to have decided otherwise.
No official word from Verizon has emerged so far on why it chose to make this move, but we can expect a statement to be made as users start talking about the phone’s bootloader.
For those out of the loop, we should note that Samsung has been providing us with unlocked bootloaders on its devices lately, to provide users with increased freedom when it comes to installing custom ROMs on their smartphones.
In fact, other mobile phone makers out there made similar moves, in an attempt to attract more users to their devices.
However, wireless carriers do try to deliver custom experiences to their users, and Verizon’s decision to lock Galaxy S III’s bootloader might have generated from there.