Benefits of unlocked bootloaders

An unlocked bootloader gives the user more ownership, control, customizability, and freedom over their device.

It is a pre-requisite to root access, which gives the user access to otherwise locked system settings, features and directories. However, this increases the necessary user responsibility and might compromise warranty

However, the difficulty of the process of unlocking the bootloader varies per device vendor.

Tool neutrality[edit]

An unlocked bootloader allows the mobile phone to act as a more neutral tool rather than pre-determined by the vendor.

Software control[edit]

Trusted software can optionally be granted root access, allowing it to access more advanced system features to enable more sophisticated functionality otherwise not accessible or adjustable.

In addition, software updates with unsolicited and undesirable shortcomings such as removed useful features can be rolled back.

Data stored by software in exclusive, locked directories can be accessed by the user through third-party file managers, through which backups otherwise not possible can be created.

Disk imaging[edit]

With an unlocked bootloader, a full image file of the device's internal memory can be created.

This provides the certainty that 'everything on the internal storage is backed up.

Users experimenting with software modifications can always restore the contents of the internal memory to the exact state of when the image file was captured, allowing to undo any changes that might lead to malfunction of the device.