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.

xiaomi-unlocked-bootloader
Redmi India support has since deleted this tweet

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.

Mi-India-support-bootloader-unlocking-warranty
(Source)

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.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Hillary Keverenge
2014 Posts

Tech has been my playground for over a decade. While the Android journey began early, it truly took flight with the revolutionary Lollipop update. Since then, it's been a parade of Android devices (with a sprinkle of iOS), culminating in a mostly happy marriage with Google's smart home ecosystem. Expect insightful articles and explorations of the ever-evolving world of Android and Google products coupled with occasional rants on the Nest smart home ecosystem.

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