Robin comes with an unlocked SIM, so you can choose the right carrier for you. And because we think what you run should be up to you too, we’ve made it as easy as possible for you to customize Robin. Its unlocked bootloader and open source drivers make it easy to load CyanogenMod or any other ROM you want and Robin will still be under warranty.
I'm not up-to-date on my Android phones, but my impression is that this isn't particularly common. Most of the concerns I see on this thread are complaints about how secure it is to sync one's data on someone else's servers... but doesn't this make it much simpler to hack around with the phone and disable that functionality? (Or perhaps even set up syncing with one's own servers?)
Selling the phone with an unlocked bootloader seems to go against the "Security is critical to us, and we know it is to you too" mentality.
Having an unlocked bootloader opens to the device up to far more security vulnerabilities should it fall into the wrong hands. In some cases attacks can be performed even if the device has full disk encryption[1].
Unlocked phones aren't necessarily uncommon, if you're in the USA all "mobile wireless devices" can be unlocked in some manner[1]. It's nice that they give you an unlocked bootloader out of the box, but most popular Android bootloaders have been community unlocked in some manner. And I assume if you're willing to go to the effort of disabling their entire sync service you're kinda just left with a regular Android phone, and it'll probably be hard to replicate the entire stack nextbit has to sync on your own server.
even if the bootloaders are unlocked, you usually still face an issue with all those non-open drivers to make the phone work right.
One annoying example is how Sony's Xperia phones can have their bootloaders unlocked, but Sony keeps the secret sauce behind their image sensor's software locked up in a proprietary, inaccessible blob that (IIRC) other ROM makers have been unable to integrate into their Xperia builds.
If Nexbit is not only unlocking the bootloader but providing the hw drivers as open source, that could be a bigger deal.
> No barriers.
Robin comes with an unlocked SIM, so you can choose the right carrier for you. And because we think what you run should be up to you too, we’ve made it as easy as possible for you to customize Robin. Its unlocked bootloader and open source drivers make it easy to load CyanogenMod or any other ROM you want and Robin will still be under warranty.
I'm not up-to-date on my Android phones, but my impression is that this isn't particularly common. Most of the concerns I see on this thread are complaints about how secure it is to sync one's data on someone else's servers... but doesn't this make it much simpler to hack around with the phone and disable that functionality? (Or perhaps even set up syncing with one's own servers?)