Samsung will allow Z Fold 3 bootloader unlock, but at the cost of losing cameras

Samsung users who want to root their Galaxy Z Fold 3 have found that the phone's cameras become unusable when doing so. This isn't a fluke - the phone warns of this before unlocking.

Samsung seems to be trying to dissuade users from modifying the software on their new Galaxy Z Fold 3 by giving them a message that unlocking the phone's bootloader will make the phone's cameras unusable. This isn't the first time phone makers have resorted to such tricks, but it seems to be an escalation of Samsung's fight against users who want full control over their phones.

An XDA Forums user confirmed that after unlocking the bootloader, the Z Fold 3 cameras were completely non-functional: including facial recognition didn't work, and downloading and using third-party camera apps didn't help. The user reports that after locking the bootloader back, the cameras worked again.

Samsung has taken a somewhat unfriendly stance towards modders before. Samsung's documentation on Knox says that if you root your phone and flash it with an unofficial Android build, everything related to Knox security will be disabled forever and will only be restored when you replace the phone's hardware.

This means that if you root your Samsung phone, features like Samsung Pay and Secure Folder will never work again. To be clear, this won't happen if you simply unlock the phone's bootloader - it only happens after you make changes to the phone's OS. Unlocking the bootloader doesn't make much sense by itself though, so there's not much difference.

Source: androidpolice

Illustration: 白い熊 on XDA Forums