Hi everyone!
So during my trip in the US, I decided to buy a brand new Galaxy S5. I was going to use it outside US so I wanted an unlocked version (since they don't sell international versions in us)
So I got a verizon version of the S5.
Model: SM-G900V
The problem
The problem is that i am getting notifications like. Non Verizon sim inserted. Loads of verizon bloatware. and I cant use my mobile hotspot. Similar to this
I absolutely hate this. I paid $800 for this phone and I'm bombarded with verizon's nonsense and restricted for no reason
My question
The question is, can I install a stock rom on my S5? more specifically can I flash the SM-G900f ?? So that I can get rid of this custom verizon software.
vidhu1911 said:
The question is, can I install a stock rom on my S5? more specifically can I flash the SM-G900f ?? So that I can get rid of this custom verizon software.
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Well it's complicated and you have some reading to do if you really want to understand your options. But broadly speaking, the answer is yes. Since you were (or are?) planning to use the phone elsewhere, you'd have been happier had you bought a different S5 variant e.g. a TMobile S5 rather than the Verizon one because you would find it a lot less restrictive, give you more choices and options. And even access to a larger palette of frequency bands should you end up roaming somewhere that uses unusual frequency bands.
Note that there is a dedicated Verizon S5 forum here where you'll find most of what you are looking for. What you are thinking of as a stock ROM would be more accurately called a custom ROM. A stock ROM is.. well what you currently have, with all of the included carrier /Verizon applications that are annoying you. You'll probably want to root your phone and flash a custom ROM to get rid of a lot of superfluous Verizon stuff. That may have warranty implications and you should do some reading about warranty and locked bootloaders (something extra nice that Verizon and ATT do to make it harder to flash your phone).
.
I crushed my S5 (AT&T) today, pretty much broke it in half. Ooops.
I've long disliked the bootloader lock and ATT bloatware but I want to stay with the S5 platform for now since I like the form factor and various features.
Which is the best S5 variant for me to get that allows the most flexibility with unlocked bootloader and loading various ROMs? I'm thinking its the T-mobile variant, but wanted to get some feedback before I bought one. I'll be using a SIM from Puretalk as my carrier, so any SIM unlocked version should work.
Many thanks!
G900F seems to be the most popular, and has an unlocked bootloader
*Detection* said:
G900F seems to be the most popular, and has an unlocked bootloader
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G900T is a good choice as well. If you're in North America it might be easier to get your hands on one of those than a G900F.
So here is the deal. All of the variants for the Galaxy S7 / S7 Edge now have unlocked bootloaders except the ones from the US, even the chinese qualcomm variants got unlocked bootloaders. The way they got the unlocked bootloader was through an unlock tool provided by samsung on the galaxy app store. My question of the day is...
Is this possible on the US variant?
Could a modified version of this app or straight up this app be used on the US variant?
My hope is that I can unlock the bootloader of my Verizon Galaxy S7 now that I have lived with this locked bootloader root for 8 months now, and possibly have it run the nougat firmware, rooted, and have TWRP.
Cm4nXD said:
So here is the deal. All of the variants for the Galaxy S7 / S7 Edge now have unlocked bootloaders except the ones from the US, even the chinese qualcomm variants got unlocked bootloaders. The way they got the unlocked bootloader was through an unlock tool provided by samsung on the galaxy app store. My question of the day is...
Is this possible on the US variant?
Could a modified version of this app or straight up this app be used on the US variant?
My hope is that I can unlock the bootloader of my Verizon Galaxy S7 now that I have lived with this locked bootloader root for 8 months now, and possibly have it run the nougat firmware, rooted, and have TWRP.
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Put simply no. People have tried and it just doesn't work sadly.
Illogi.xbone said:
Put simply no. People have tried and it just doesn't work sadly.
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That's to bad, love this phone.
The only thing that would make it better is an unlocked bootloader and TWRP. [emoji3]
sent from a galaxy far far away
Illogi.xbone said:
Put simply no. People have tried and it just doesn't work sadly.
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Has it been determined why Samsung won't let the US unlock the bootloader? TWRP would be awesome..
Binary Assault said:
Has it been determined why Samsung won't let the US unlock the bootloader? TWRP would be awesome..
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It's not Samsung, it's the US carriers who insist on the locked bootloaders. Your next question is probably going to be, "Why doesn't Samsung stand up to the carriers and insist their bootloaders be unlocked?" The answer is simple. Samsung is in the business of selling phones. They're not going to stay in business very long if they make that stand, and two of the largest carriers with the most customers (Verizon and AT&T) say, "Fine, we won't carry your phones then." The people who root their phones and care whether or not their bootloaders are unlocked are such a minute fraction of the total wireless carrier customer base, so the carriers stance on the bootloaders is not likely to change.
landshark68 said:
It's not Samsung, it's the US carriers who insist on the locked bootloaders. Your next question is probably going to be, "Why doesn't Samsung stand up to the carriers and insist their bootloaders be unlocked?" The answer is simple. Samsung is in the business of selling phones. They're not going to stay in business very long if they make that stand, and two of the largest carriers with the most customers (Verizon and AT&T) say, "Fine, we won't carry your phones then." The people who root their phones and care whether or not their bootloaders are unlocked are such a minute fraction of the total wireless carrier customer base, so the carriers stance on the bootloaders is not likely to change.
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well said
Verizon and att kinda has Samsung by the balls they could go on without sammi
now sprint and tmob need Samsung plus all the little companys need Samsung now like lg
all the carriers have lg by the balls if u don't make the software how we want we wont sell ure ****.
Samsung could survive without the us carriers it would hurt em but they could survive
now lg on the other hand could not theyre mobile phones division would go down if it wasn't for the us carriers this has all been gone over in of the lg threads on the same thing no bl unlock
Now out of curiosity are these bootloaders locked or are they signed with a key???
If a key what kind of encryption is used?
I know the g4 is encrypted with a 256 bit key which is basicly unhackable at this point in time.
TheMadScientist420 said:
Now out of curiosity are these bootloaders locked or are they signed with a key???
If a key what kind of encryption is used?
I know the g4 is encrypted with a 256 bit key which is basicly unhackable at this point in time.
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Locked, tighter than Apple too! Maybe we will see an exploit one day, look a t the Note 4 which took a year, or was it longer?, and then look at the s4 and the others, ONE exploitable bootloader then its locked down. It doesn't affect me too much personally, getting Pixel when taxes come in, but would like to see it in the future since my S7 will be my go to backup.
cant we try flashing that firmware version to our phones and use the app?
This is why my next phone will either not be a Galaxy S7, or will be the international one. I'm eyeing the Pixel 2 for my next phone though. I didn't want the Pixel because of the lack of water resistance.
Have not found a "place where this is being worked on" per-say, but please let it be known to any developers working on a method of unlocking the US S7/S7 Edge - I purchased an S7 Edge (T-Mobile) and shortly later ended up aquiring a S7 G930U - My understanding is that even though it's "U" It is only unlocked to use any carrier/sim, but still locked bootloader - which I would say seems true as it complained after the "soft-root" and me then enabling to many 'rooted' apps - causing a lockdown and no way around it but to re-flash.
** The reason for posting this ** - I am more than willing to 'test' any possible methods on the G930U that I have. I'm not a skilled android dev. but neither am I a novice, I am quite capable of providing any needed data, and also have quite a bit of software that could possibly help in finding answers, DFS and others. I also am very good at acquiring software, If there is anything I can do to help with this please get in touch with me!
Dycast - coming from my beloved rooted S4 as a crazed flash-a-holic - now with lovely S7's LOCKED to the hilt and hating it.. Like I just had a leash and muzzle strapped on.. If it wasn't for being able to play with the VR end of things I would just as well go back to my S4..
Shadowops34 said:
cant we try flashing that firmware version to our phones and use the app?
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No unfortunately not. THe chinese phone uses a special keycheck that the US variants don't have.
So when you use the app it sends a packet request for a non-existent key.
there was a whole thread about this and the guy tried to reverse engineer it and it wouldn't work
Silkmeister
The reason why what works for the international variants of the s7 won't work for the United States ones is because the US ones use the qualcomm snapdragon. Two different processors. Also it is both the carriers and samsun who have a say in locking the bootloader. Samsung makes the devices it is their choice how they make it. Verizon and att models of samsung phones have always had locked bootloaders. Tmobile and sprint in the past have not. People were shocked the tmobile s7 had a locked bootloader. Even tmobile said it should not have been locked according to them. You never see unlocked bootloaders for iphones on any carrier because apple juat doesn't do it and also their software isn't open source like android is. The s8 is going to have a locked bootloader as well from what I have read. I am hoping tmobile goes back to their roots heh pun intended. So that we can get an unlocked bootloader for samsung phones again.
TheMadScientist420 said:
Now out of curiosity are these bootloaders locked or are they signed with a key???
If a key what kind of encryption is used?
I know the g4 is encrypted with a 256 bit key which is basicly unhackable at this point in time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Illogi.xbone said:
Locked, tighter than Apple too! Maybe we will see an exploit one day, look a t the Note 4 which took a year, or was it longer?, and then look at the s4 and the others, ONE exploitable bootloader then its locked down. It doesn't affect me too much personally, getting Pixel when taxes come in, but would like to see it in the future since my S7 will be my go to backup.
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The question still remains, what makes it as locked as it is at this point? Is it because Qualcomm wrote the the original closed source code for Android's "aboot"? Or is it something that is more obvious?
Delgoth said:
The question still remains, what makes it as locked as it is at this point? Is it because Qualcomm wrote the the original closed source code for Android's "aboot"? Or is it something that is more obvious?
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Everything points to them just being signed now. So we cant flash anything thats not signed with lgs or in this case sammys key
At this point it's been over a year now and still no unlocked bootloader. I'm dying without any custom ROMs like lineage is. I just love playing with my device. Can't they just let me do that.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Realistically that shouldn't be hard to discover either. We know where to look for their encrypted key. In the footer of the .Tar files, and the last few bytes of the partition images. Now the question is, how we use DD to strip off all but like the last 2048 bytes of the boot.img's, to compare amongst the different incremental builds for the same device.
That should give us all the different keys generated from Samsung's private signing key. This gives us a method to reverse engineer the algorithm used to create the public keys from the private key. This in turn will then lead us to either A.) Reverse Engineer the actual private key, or B.) Give us an equation with which to generate our own key which the Device will accept.
Using @droidvoider 's Dirty cow based root console, we can pull the .pem files from the stock firmware, and also pull the other firmware specific certificates. Using his console along with combination firmware also allows us to mount the /system & /data partitions as RW in an environment which does not care about DM-Verity success. That gives us a route for installing a system-Ish root that can persist through a reboot without an eng kernel.
But if the signing keys are the last roadblock, I think the greyhat root project is almost done with that thanks to a the other member(s).
We will see soon.
TheMadScientist420 said:
Everything points to them just being signed now. So we cant flash anything thats not signed with lgs or in this case sammys key
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Im currently running G930U AQC1 (Android 6) firmware on G930V. Do I need to unlock bootloader in order to get the root access?
Sent from my SM-G930U using Tapatalk
ahmedk49 said:
Im currently running G930U AQC1 (Android 6) firmware on G930V. Do I need to unlock bootloader in order to get the root access?
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https://forum.xda-developers.com/ve...-to-notes-root-install-xposed-unroot-t3411039
No, because you cannot unlock the bootloader.
Delgoth, how close are you?
Hello everyone,
I am looking to upgrade from my S4 to an S7 over the next few days, and I have been trying to decide which is the better option between the Verizon model and the unlocked model. I will be using this phone on a Verizon network for now, and was leaning to the unlocked model to get rid of the Verizon bloatware. There is a chance I will be living in a different country in another year or so, so I figured the unlocked model would also give me more flexibility with my next carrier, as I had heard the Verizon model does not support all carrier frequencies. Are there any distinct advantages to going with the Verizon model over the unlocked model, or are there any other important differences I'm overlooking between these two options?
Thanks!
Unlocked how? Boot loader unlocked or carrier network (SIMM) unlocked? Verizon phones are carrier unlocked. Meaning, you can already take an AT&T SIMM and put it into the Verizon S7 and it will work.
As for removing verizon bloatware, that's only possible if you root. Unlocked is specific to the carrier only, not an unlocked bootloader. None have an unlocked bootloader that I know of.
The carrier unlocked phones also receive updates much slower than the normal ones.
https://plus.google.com/+DroidLife/posts/ENv2fH9zD7e
If you want carrier unlocked phones that get updates faster than the generic carrier unlocked phones, get the Verizon phone. As per this article, it's already carrier unlocked and it's already updated to Nougat. Might be some hoops to jump through, but it works:
http://www.androidcentral.com/yes-verizon-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-are-sim-unlocked
The generic unlocked ones are still on Marshmallow and there is no word on if/when they'll get Nougat. Also, the Verizon one is cheaper than the generic carrier unlocked phones. Expecially if you can find a sale going on for it.
There is a hybrid rom that is debloated and works great for all models, it is posted in the vzw amd tmo s7 forums. I'm using it on two phones myself.
The U firmware has no bloat, and has all bands available for use. The main downside is that nougat still isn't out for it, and certain apps won't work if you're from Verizon such as their voicemail app.
On the plus side you get some features that Verizon charges extra for, such as caller ID built in for free.
Regardless you can flash any firmware to any S7 so long as it's the snapdragon variant.
cadcamaro said:
The U firmware has no bloat, and has all bands available for use. The main downside is that nougat still isn't out for it, and certain apps won't work if you're from Verizon such as their voicemail app.
On the plus side you get some features that Verizon charges extra for, such as caller ID built in for free.
Regardless you can flash any firmware to any S7 so long as it's the snapdragon variant.
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I've been curious about the G-930U also. If you know, please tell me if these working assumptions are correct or not: The "U" has no carrier branding on it and it has no carrier "bloat" in it (although maybe some Samsung stuff). The "U" CANNOT be bootloader unlocked because it has the Snapdragon processor and at present none of the Snapdragon variations can have their bootloaders unlocked (how I hope this isn't true!). The "U" can be flashed to carrier-specific firmware, although I don't know what the advantage would be.
I'm still mostly using an XT1575, the Motorola X Play Edition 2015. It too had no carrier contamination but it's bootloader was easy to unlock. All I had to do to get it to work with Verizon was insert my nano SIM card. Do any phones still work like that?
I see this BOGO offer direct on Samsung's website for Galaxy S8's. In the past, all Galaxy S phones were SM-G920T (T for T-Mobile) SM-G920V (V for Verizon, etc) and then Best Buy sold that piece of crap SIM unlocked SM-G920U that was bootloader LOCKED and couldn't do anything with it.
I'm trying to find out here if the Bootloader is locked on any variant of the Snapdragon 835 S8's, and which version I should get. T-Mobile has the same BOGO offer on the S8 in the form of a rebate as well, but I can't confirm anywhere the specific model number. I'm so jaded by the fact that T-Mobile left the bootloader locked on their S7 that I can't imagine them leaving it unlocked.
The G6 is also BOGO right now as well, but I don't know if that bootloader is unlocked like all my previous LG phones from T-Mo we're.
I'd really appreciate any kind of confirmed answers you might have!
Cheers!
joesee said:
I see this BOGO offer direct on Samsung's website for Galaxy S8's. In the past, all Galaxy S phones were SM-G920T (T for T-Mobile) SM-G920V (V for Verizon, etc) and then Best Buy sold that piece of crap SIM unlocked SM-G920U that was bootloader LOCKED and couldn't do anything with it.
I'm trying to find out here if the Bootloader is locked on any variant of the Snapdragon 835 S8's, and which version I should get. T-Mobile has the same BOGO offer on the S8 in the form of a rebate as well, but I can't confirm anywhere the specific model number. I'm so jaded by the fact that T-Mobile left the bootloader locked on their S7 that I can't imagine them leaving it unlocked.
The G6 is also BOGO right now as well, but I don't know if that bootloader is unlocked like all my previous LG phones from T-Mo we're.
I'd really appreciate any kind of confirmed answers you might have!
Cheers!
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All the carriers have "U" devices in the U.S. this year. The SIM you initialize the phone with is what carrier's features are added. A "U" from Samsung apparently doesn't take on the carrier whose SIM is used features and remains virgin. So "U" could be considered "universal" or "U.S." It's still a S-835 device which means "U" definitely doesn't mean unlocked bootloader.
I'm not an expert at all but I really doubt that ANY Samsung bootloader will ever be unlocked again. Pretty much after 2013 all bootloaders were locked [AFAIK] at least for the Galaxy series. I really like Samsung devices but my Galaxy Tab S (late 2014) isn't even going to get the Nougat upgrade - this actually pisses me off greatly.
When you see 'unlocked' concerning a phone/device it means CARRIER unlocked, not the bootloader. The 'unlocked' means that you can use it with any carrier that the device supports - so just about most of the carriers/providers in the entire world. Still not sure about this concerning CDMA (Verizon/Sprint) as some things may not work (different bands). Tried using GSM phones on CDMA a few years back and wasn't able to use 4G/LTE & also MMS.
Good luck.
EDIT:
Was typing this as BarryH_GEG replied to your question. Yes the letter following the model corresponds to the various carriers (Verizon, Cricket, Sprint, etc) and are also different for international versions.
EDIT2:
On another note I own a Galaxy S7 Edge (international) that has the Exynos processor that is unlocked. At the same time this is the only device I've never rooted because it works so well for me, no carrier bloatware. Also the only device I've ever purchased without a removable battery. Until the latest updates I was able to go 2 days without charging (not anymore unfortunately). The international S8/S8+ also use the Exynos processor so you might consider this option. However the cost will be high as it was for me when I purchased my GS7edge as you'll need to purchase it directly without any US discounts or such. I paid out just over $700 for my GS7edge directly, though at the same time my AT&T bill is much lower because of this.
I've researched the GS8+ international and it's looking to be around $800. Compared to trading in my GS7edge international for an unlocked US version I can get for $375 (with trade-in) if I do this within a month or so... I can probably get $400 for my GS7edge (since it's international) but how long will this take? If I only get $300 for it for a quick sale I'll still spend $500 for the new 8+ so is this worth it?
Only stating these issues so that you understand my thinking concerning an unlocked bootloader. These are [mostly, still SS stuff] bloatware free, have incredible power, etc, etc. I miss rooting my device but is it really worth it for the cost? I really want the international/Exynos S8+ but still not sure.
Let me know your thoughts, later.