A user sued ASUS for not letting them unlock their bootloaders

For years, tech-savvy smartphone users have been unlocking their device’s bootloaders in order to experience their phones to the fullest extent. Users would often do this with ASUS phones, and the company has provided tools to do so. However, one user sued ASUS for walking back its promise to provide tools for unlocking its phone’s bootloaders.

Over the years, ASUS allowed its users to unlock its phones’ bootloaders. It even went further than this by actually providing tools to let users do so. Unlocking the phone’s bootloader is a complicated process, and it could actually result in the user bricking their device. So, any sort of help is greatly appreciated.

The company even promised to continue to support unlocking the bootloaders. However, it appears to have pivoted. Last year, the company disabled the ability to unlock its phones’ bootloaders. Also, it removed the tools to do so along with removing posts about bootloader unlocking on its ZenTalk forums. It basically scrubbed any evidence that it allowed unlocking bootloaders.

One user sued ASUS for not letting them unlock their bootloader

ASUS walking back its promise to provide tools for unlocking bootloaders did not sit well with one user in the UK. The user in question is unnamed. After buying an ASUS phone, they tried to unlock the bootloader. However, they were unable to, and this infuriated them.

So, the user brought ASUS to court in a lower-level court in the UK. After battling it out, the user was able to win the case and get a full refund for the phone which was £770, which translates to about $973.

What does this mean for ASUS?

Well, nothing really. Recently, we’ve been seeing major companies have to bend and change their entire business structures thanks to lawsuits being filed. These include companies like Apple, TikTok, Meta, Google, Etc.

However, don’t expect ASUS to be forced to allow people to unlock the bootloaders on its phones. If a major government filed a lawsuit against ASUS on the grounds that it should provide tools, then things would be different. However, this was a very small case brought in a very small court so, ASUS will continue operating as usual.

In any case, the user who sued ASUS can enjoy their victory.