Sony Under Fire With Hard Stance on Warranties and Unlocked Bootloaders

When it came to addressing the needs of developers and the hacking community, Sony came through and became one of the earlier Android smartphone manufacturers to offer a bootloader unlocking tool. This allows developers to hack their devices, load custom ROMs, and customize their Sony or Sony Ericsson Xperia Android smartphones. However, if you do take those risks and should something go wrong with your phone, don’t look at Sony for help.

The Android smartphone manufacturer is taking a hard policy against servicing any phones or warranty claims should the phone have an unlocked boatloader. This applies to faulty software, if any on the phone, and any hardware problems whether they be from user abuse or as a result of manufacturing defects.

The issue of not repairing hardware with manufacturing defects is an unfortunate case for Sony as the Xperia Blog is reporting that users are complaining that Sony is refusing to fix handsets with  issues such as displays with a yellow tint–is is doubtful that the unlocked bootloader can cause an issue with the yellow tint. And relocating the bootloder before sending in the handset doesn’t help either:

Re-locking the bootloader before the handset is sent in doesn’t seem to make a difference either as at least one user has reported that the repair was refused as the bootloader was unlocked in the past (we imagine they could tell from the removal of the DRM keys).