What happens to the One Plus 5 if I unlock the bootloader?

VSMiguel

Senior Member
Jun 7, 2016
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Greetings! I have just ordered my new OP5 and now I hat a Sony Z5. If you were Xperia users, you know that after unlock the bootloader, you lost permanently (or you did a backup before) a speial partition where Sony put very important data for the device (like the camera quality for example).
I know myself ad I have fear that if I unlock the bootloader I lose some imoprtant data or something so my question is: which consequences do you have if you unlock the OP5? Do you lose something important like in the Sony devices or not? :confused:
Thank you very much and sorry of there's a thread where you must post this questions :crying:
 

jhs39

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Oct 8, 2015
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Unlocking the bootloader basically resets your phone and you lose data plus any apps you installed but you don't lose anything like what you are describing --you just need to set up your phone again. The biggest problem you would encounter is that Android Pay probably wouldn't work unless you flash a custom kernel. Default Android behavior is that if you unlock the bootloader you automatically can't pass Safety Net and I don't think OnePlus or any other phone maker that runs Android is officially allowed to change that behavior --which is why you need a custom kernel to still pass Safety Net.
 
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ultramag69

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Nov 6, 2007
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Oh, and you have a screen at boot that pretty much states that the bootloader has been unlocked.
Not sure why we still have to deal with this as this has been masked on a few other model phones, like the Axon 7, and with all the dev's available for the one+ it's surprising this hasn't been sorted for us too...
 

prozo

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Nov 10, 2016
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So far after unlocking my bootloader and rooting with magisk, android pay is unavailable. I didn't use it much anyways as out here in rural country midwest (USA) it isn't very widespread. As far as warranty goes it is still in effect and 1+ also has a guide for restoring your phone to stock too. It's definitely a great phone for customizing and trying new things with. I didn't apply a new ROM though as most ROMs available at this time are still a work in progress and not what I deem entirely stable. I'm sure someone here will contradict me, but I'm doing fine with what I've got so far.
 

lollyjay

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Jul 26, 2012
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So far after unlocking my bootloader and rooting with magisk, android pay is unavailable. I didn't use it much anyways as out here in rural country midwest (USA) it isn't very widespread. As far as warranty goes it is still in effect and 1+ also has a guide for restoring your phone to stock too. It's definitely a great phone for customizing and trying new things with. I didn't apply a new ROM though as most ROMs available at this time are still a work in progress and not what I deem entirely stable. I'm sure someone here will contradict me, but I'm doing fine with what I've got so far.
Works for me on stock 7.1.1....

Sent from my OnePlus5 using XDA Labs
 

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ultramag69

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Essentially, if you're happy with how your phone is working, there is no need to unlock the boot loader and root. There is no point to unlock the bootloader and then not root .
Unlocking the bootloader allows custom recoveries and roms/kernels to be installed onto the phone.
It also allows such things as substratum, xposed and magisk to be installed as these apps generally require root priveliges that aren't available with a locked bootloader and being unrooted.
Customisation can be easier, Bloat can be removed instead of just frozen and tweaks can be applied BUT there is a downside too as this has effectively breached Googles security and will break certain apps (mostly banking but there has been reports of streaming apps being affected too on other forums).
Luckily as you have the One+5 you can, if you wish, revert to stock and relock the bootloader thus reverting all changes, unlocking most other phones which will destroy any hope of getting warranty or a relocked bootloader.
Just be sure you HAVE got it back to stock 1st however as having anything different, (kernel,rom or recovery) may very well brick your device once you relock the bootloader.
 

jhs39

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Oct 8, 2015
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So far after unlocking my bootloader and rooting with magisk, android pay is unavailable. I didn't use it much anyways as out here in rural country midwest (USA) it isn't very widespread. As far as warranty goes it is still in effect and 1+ also has a guide for restoring your phone to stock too. It's definitely a great phone for customizing and trying new things with. I didn't apply a new ROM though as most ROMs available at this time are still a work in progress and not what I deem entirely stable. I'm sure someone here will contradict me, but I'm doing fine with what I've got so far.
You need to flash a custom kernel to pass safety net. It won't work with the stock kernel. Blu Spark seems to be the official unofficial kernel and you could easily flash that one and forget it as it is pretty fast and smooth as is. Boeffla kernel is built for stability and is rock solid but if you don't tweak the settings at all you might notice a slight drop in performance from stock. Either one will allow you to pass Safety Net and can improve the speed and performance of the phone over stock. Boeffla also includes a fix for the auto brightness making the phone too dim by allowing you to set a minimum screen brightness that it won't go below.
 

nvlty

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Feb 11, 2012
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Hey,

I'm aware this is thread is pretty old, but I'm wondering how things are now? It's been quite some time since I've touched any bootloaders or custom roms and I'm interested in testing android 11 with my op5. What are the downsides with unlocking your bootloader and installing a custom rom?

Google pay not working?
Banking apps not working?
Netflix not working?

I tried searching this forum and googling around and I really could not find any answers. And none of the custom rom threads I checked mention safetynet.