the new policy brought that number down to a single device per year
Well, better than no bootloader unlocking which was the rumour going around.
But this trend is certainly saddening, and it feels like it’s a matter of time before bootloader unlocking goes away altogether.
I tried an unmodified xiaomi phone and couldn’t believe how shit it was.
Ads everywhere. When you open the file manager you’d get a full page ad. That phone was a disease
No wonder they don’t want people installing ad-free Lineageos on their machines
Which region? I’ve been on Poco/Xiaomi for years and I’ve never noticed ads.
France
But it seems to be an issue elsewhere also
This is ridiculous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euRcPJF0Yrw
It absolutely is the same strategy tv manufacturers adopted that allows them to sell for so cheap
I’ll add another datapoint. I’ve had to do some effort removing/disabling OEM bloatware and adware on my Xiaomi phone.
To be fair though, I bought it because it has good specs for its price, and I was already aware of all the bloat and adware that came with it. The first thing I did after unboxing the phone is to just excise all of that shit.
Global version from the Philippines, if you must know.
You should have seen the pihole logs during the days my redmi made me wait before it allowed me to unlock the bootloader. It was shocking. That stock OS singlehandedly doubled the percentage of blocked DNS requests at the pihole. I was amazed by how insanely invasive it was. Kept asking me to create sms or email verified accounts to do super basic crap.
tldr:
While earlier Xiaomi allowed users to unlock up to three devices per year, the new policy brought that number down to a single device per year and applies to both China and the rest of the world.
The restriction can prevent any abuses of the unlock system in making mass customizations to sell.
That’s a value-add, not abuse.
In response my in-house policy has changed to allow purchase of 0 Xiaomi devices per year.
