In an interesting move by Sony regarding Xperia devices, anyone who is fiddling with the Android OS on any of them by rooting their Xperia device won’t be able to have it fixed by Sony should anything go wrong with your Xperia phone regardless if it is hardware related.
As a specific example, people on the XDA forums are reporting that Sony is refusing to fix their Xperia S devices that are suffering from a yellow tint problem. This problem is actually a manufacturing defect and has nothing to do with the fact that their phones have unlocked bootloaders. When the phone reaches a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius or hotter, the screen will begin displaying a slight yellow discoloration. Anyone who has sent their Xperia S phone into Sony to be fixed have had their devices returned to them unfixed if their bootloaders are unlocked.
Sony is taking it a step further as well with their customer support deeming this process as having their bootloader ‘illegally unlocked’. People who have received their Xperia S devices back from Sony unfixed have gone ahead and re-locked the bootloader and sent them back in only to be turned down again.
The irony in all of this is that the official Sony website has a section dedicated to giving users a step-by-step guide to unlocking their bootloaders which, according to their customer service, is an illegal process. In fact there is a guide and tools to unlock most Xperia devices which Sony Ericsson released before being bought up by Sony. While most companies do say that unlocking a bootloader will void the warranty, Sony’s only says that it ‘may’ void the warranty:
Please note that you may void the warranty of your phone and/or any warranty from your operator if you unlock the bootloader
We don’t really need to point out the entire idiocy of supplying users with the means to unlock their Xperia devices then turning around and denying them any support should their device need something fixed, especially if it is a manufacturing defect. As PocketGamer points out, if you are going to flat of void the warranty on devices with unlocked bootloaders then there shouldn’t be any sort of ‘may’ in the warning and it should just be a flat out ‘will void’.
Website Referenced: PocketGamer
