12 days until XMAS. Our Samsung Galaxy gift guide features smartphones and wearables.
Last updated: April 11th, 2014 at 17:20 UTC+02:00
SamMobile has affiliate and sponsored partnerships, we may earn a commission.
Reading time: 1 minutes
Those who make it a habit to root and make other software modifications to their smartphones are aware of that evil thing called a locked bootloader, which prevents users from making system-level changes unless they are okay with voiding their warranty. Samsung devices don't typically have a locked bootloader, but carriers like Verizon make exceptions in order to “protect the user experience.” Thankfully, Verizon has offered developer editions of flagships with unlocked bootloaders in the past, and the carrier is about to do the same with the Galaxy S5, which went up for sale globally today.
The Galaxy S5 Developer Edition for Verizon has showed up on Samsung's website, hinting that it could be made available to consumers soon. The price tag isn't mentioned, but you can expect to pay anywhere between $599-699 for the device. As usual, an unlocked bootloader will be the only difference on the developer edition compared to the standard model, meaning things like the 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display, Snapdragon 801 processor, 16MP camera, fingerprint scanner and Android 4.4 KitKat will remain intact.
Anyone looking to pick up the Galaxy S5 Developer Edition?
Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.
