[nousermane]

SIM/operator locks have been already rare (in Europe) for a while, and that's great!

But there are Android phones that come with bootloader/OS lock, which often means old device is stuck with some ancient OS version (and some bundled bloatware), instead of being able to be reflashed to a recent LineageOS.

[BossHamster]

Even LineageOS can only help so far. I've got a Galaxy S7 Edge, bought it dec. 2016. It's not even supported by Lineage OS any more.

[emteycz]

You should switch to the official OS then - it just got an update. As it also did 3, 6 and 12 months ago.

[BossHamster]

What are you talking about? The last update for the "official" OS was for Android 8.0. That was two years ago.

[emteycz]

Mine got OS update just this week. Not sure what the Android version is though, it's now my girlfriend's phone. It did the OS reinstall screen.

[fuzxi]

Are you talking about quarterly security patches...?

[kuzko_topia]

Xiaomi's phones are locked like this, requiring a mi account to unlock the device to allow flashing thé device...