After months of showing that Samsung Galaxy S 3 was going to have a locked bootloader, today Samsung Galaxy S 3 Developer Edition is available which has an unlockable bootloader. According to the Samsung, this model is only available in Verizon Wireless, Pebble blue color, and starting at $599 without a contract.
In the month of July, Samsung revealed that Galaxy S III will be having a locked bootloader in Verizon’s version. The carrier said it had to keep the bootloader locked to make sure that all of its customers with the Samsung Galaxy S 3 would receive the usual level of Verizon customer service. Now, both Samsung and Verizon say “they realize that there are many users of the device who would like to run third party ROMs, although they don’t warn that only those experienced with such matters should be playing around with the phone”. Hence they are comoing out with the developer’s edition.
The device’s main feature is its unlockable bootloader but phone will only run on Verizon’s network. The bootloader is easy to unlock, which allows the device to be rooted and lets you install custom ROMs.
Its priced at $599.99 and $649.99 for 16GB and 32GB versions respectively. We checked out the samsung store and it seems both versions are out of stock now.