Really shocking news comes from the American country, from the United States, since it seems that the variants of the Samsung Galaxy S4 sold with American carriers arrive with a bootloader locked that cannot be unlocked you. And it has already been confirmed by AT&T, so ROMs like CyanogenMod cannot be installed.
The news came from none other than Steve Kondik himself, the creator of CyanogenMod, who recently left the South Korean company. This ensured that the Samsung Galaxy S4 operator AT&T had a bootloader that could not be unlocked, something really worrying for many users. The operator itself has confirmed that, indeed, it is. But it is not the only one, since Brian Klug, from AnandTech has confirmed that it also happens with the models of other operators.
At the moment we do not know what happens with the models of the Spanish operators, although we will contact them to find out if this is the case or not.
The unlockable bootloader is essential if we want to install other Custom ROMs like CyanogenMod. It is not essential to install other firmwares or for rooted ones, but it is essential for all those ROMs that have a different kernel, as is the case with most.
If the same thing happens in Spain, it is something really worrying, since it greatly limits the personalization that we can make of the smartphone. In any case, we will wait for information on these before making a more extensive assessment.
However, it seems that it is becoming increasingly common for smartphones sold with carriers to have a bootloader that cannot be unlocked. HTC follows a very similar strategy with its current flagship and is already a classic in the case of Sony with its Xperia smartphones distributed with an operator.
Well, I'll buy it from yoigo in phonehouse as I always do because they give you a free smartphone