What happens if I unlock the Bootloader?

[Unobtanium]

If I just use the HTC "official" bootloader unlock, what, if anything, does that change on my device? (Other than bring on potential warranty compliance issues?)

I am not a TB noob, but am as far as Android and unlocking, rooting, etc.

 

[wortsd1]

As far as I understand, you gain root, but remain S-On, meaning you can flash custom rom's, etc but not kernels. You should be able to do 95% of things rooted people do. Verizon likely finds out and voids your warranty, though. I would recommend rooting via Revolutionary, and downgrading if you have the late December OTA. You would need to wipe data (as you would with HTCdev's unlock), but you would gain full S-Off root, and verizon would not know

 

[fatboy97]

Read this... I hate saying the same thing over and over again... http://forums.androidcentral.com/thunderbolt-rooting-roms-hacks/145936-htc-adds-thunderbolt-official-bootloader-unlocker.html... pete had a very good explanation.

 

[Unobtanium]

Thanks. That link was what I needed.

 

[waker]

Read this... I hate saying the same thing over and over again... http://forums.androidcentral.com/thunderbolt-rooting-roms-hacks/145936-htc-adds-thunderbolt-official-bootloader-unlocker.html... pete had a very good explanation.

pete is very good at explaining these things.

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

As far as I understand, you gain root, but remain S-On, meaning you can flash custom rom's, etc but not kernels. You should be able to do 95% of things rooted people do. Verizon likely finds out and voids your warranty, though. I would recommend rooting via Revolutionary, and downgrading if you have the late December OTA. You would need to wipe data (as you would with HTCdev's unlock), but you would gain full S-Off root, and verizon would not know

Yup, based on what I've read (and screenshots I've seen), "s-on" is still active, so the bootloader is not *fully* unlocked.

As long as you can flash a custom recovery partition, i.e. Clockwork Mod, then you can install ROMs and kernels. What you will most likely NOT be able to do is flash any unofficial or unsigned updates that need to be done in HBOOT, which can include radios and RUUs.

Honestly, for the average root user this really isn't a big deal right now. There was a time in the early days of Thunderbolting where there were 2 different types of radios (pre-MR2 update and post-MR2 update), and switching between ROMs often meant having to change radio in order to get data. I really can't see any reason now why anyone would need to flash a pre-MR2 radio; and while it can be nice to be able to update to the newest radio versions, it really isn't as critical anymore, since all GB ROMs work with the current radio set.

Keep in mind, I'm not providing this info as an endorsement of the HTC dev unlock method, just trying to answer the questions being asked here. If asked, I would also recommend doing the downgrade and Revolutionary method...and that's without even considering the warranty implications (but that is a pretty darn good reason as well).