Motorola slices out Razr smartphone bootloader lock
'Developer Edition' handset in-bound
Motorola is to offer Europeans a version of its new Razr smartphone with an unlocked bootloader.
The Android 2.3 Gingerbread-running Razr Developer Edition will be made available directly from Motorola through its online shop for €499 (£418) and buyers are warned that the handset will come "without any warranty".
It also alerted potential users to the fact that the unlocked phone will not support DRM-protected content
Motorola is taking orders now, but didn't say when the Razr Developer Edition will ship.
It did say the handset will only be sent to customers in the EU, but it promised to make a version of the unlockable Razr to buyers in the US in due course.
The new Razr's unlocked bootloader code means its easy for Android and handset hackers to gain root access to the device, ostensibly for installing custom versions of the Google OS. ®
COMMENTS
"without any warranty".
Like fitness for purpose.
Don't think that they can pull that one if the purchaser is a UK consumer.
Hmmm
I think this is a bit rubbish of Moto, considering that they previously promised to release a bootloader unlocker for *all* of their recent smartphones (with the caveat that unlocking would possibly invalidate your warranty). Now they want people to buy whole new handsets to do this? Er... no I think we'll all pass, thanks.
All this has done is made me certain I'll never buy a Motorola handset.
No warranty? Legal?
I'm genuinely asking, is it legal to sell an item in the UK without any warranty? I know there's a big risk of people breaking things with badly flashed ROMs and dodgy code but surely they have to honour some sort of repairs under warranty. It's not exactly likely that any sort of code could feasibly break a screen or microphone.
Sale of Goods Act 1979
As a consumer in the UK, the provisions of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) are implied into every contract of sale and they cannot be waived or varied - even by mutual agreement. Hence, they are often referred to as "statutory rights".
It is important to remember the English Law doctrine of 'privity of contract' - only a party to a contract can bring a claim against the other. This means, if you decide to make a claim under the Sale of Goods Act, then you must claim against the vendor who sold the goods to you viz. the shop you bought them from. It is then up to that vendor to decide whether it wants to make a separate claim against the party it bought the goods from ie. the wholesaler.
Making a claim under a manufacturer's warranty is an entirely different legal action to that of claiming under the Sale of Goods Act and claiming under either does not preclude you from claiming under the other.
Many people in the UK, to their detriment, do not understand that a vendor's claim that the goods are "out of warranty" may not have any impact on your ability to claim against them. "may not" because you will need to read and understand the Sale of Goods Act (it's quite simple to follow, btw) to see where its limitations lie. For sure, being "out of warranty" precludes you from claiming against the manufacturer, but it doesn't have anything to do with a potential claim (under the Sale of Goods Act) against the vendor.
@No warranty? Legal?
Not in the EU, the 2 year warranty is mandatory and can't be revoked, (see the recent problems Apple had in the EU with this kind of thing). As for software warranty? well, that might be a different matter, only a court case will tell.
