Oh man, sorry to hear that! On the other side of the pond, carrier-specific/locked phones haven't been a thing for ages. Haven't seen a carrier-specific phone since 2013 or 2014.
replyIs it not possible to buy a phone in the US without any cellular providers involved? I thought that kind of lock-in was a thing of the past.
replyIt is possible, but many people still buy them from their provider with financing or subsidies. That means people shopping for used Pixels who want to unlock the bootloader need to avoid the special Verizon variant which forbids unlocking the bootloader.
replyThis is separate from SIM locking, which forbids use with another carrier. US carriers still do that, but are required to remove the lock after a while if the customer doesn't owe them money.
It's not clear why Verizon insists on permanently locked bootloaders or why Google agrees to it for Verizon when they don't do it on Pixels sold anywhere else.
Yep. I lost a restocking fee when I bought a used "unlocked" Pixel. Turned out it was not SIM locked, but it was impossible to unlock the bootloader. It was pretty easy to find a bootloader-unlockable Pixel once I knew what to look out for, but the first time I had no idea this was something you had to look out for.
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