Xiaomi says unlocked bootloader doesn't void warranty, but there is a catch

Xiaomi smartphones are among the best for those fans of tinkering and modding software to their own preferences. One thing that makes them fan favorites is the ease of unlocking the bootloader, which is the first step towards rooting devices.

In order to gain root access, your phone must first have an unlocked bootloader. Essentially, this means your device might be having an unlocked bootloader but still not rooted.

For now, though, let’s save the rooting stuff for another day and focus on bootloader unlocking, a feature that continues to popularize Xiaomi smartphones among the power users and custom ROM developers community.

Contrary to some fears doing rounds on the interwebs (see screenshot above), Xiaomi lets users of its devices unlock the bootloader without messing up the phone’s warranty. Matter of fact, it is this policy that keeps attracting more power users and modders to keep buying Xiaomi phones.

Since unlocking the bootloader of any handset doesn’t make any changes to the base software, your device’s warranty remains unaffected in the event that you unlock the bootloader.

But if you go ahead and replace the stock MIUI software with, say, LineageOS, and end up with a bricked device that cannot be recovered via a software-related procedure, Xiaomi says your warranty will be void. That right there, folks, is the catch.

A Xiaomi India spokesman told XDA that “bootloader unlocking does not inherently void your hardware warranty. But a case where the unlocking results in a brick which cannot be fixed via software, the warranty will be void.” This statement has been echoed by Mi India support on Twitter.

So guys, if you are merely after an unlocked bootloader, nothing will happen to your device warranty. But if you go further and root the device or replace the pre-installed software with a custom ROM, the device will be serviced at your own cost in the event of a brick/crash.

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