Samsung is an example of a manufacturer that doesn't make it easy. Oppo, One Plus and Google (LG) all have very easy to unlock bootloaders that have "official" instructions from the manufacturer (and it's two commands away).

Can you still brick it? Yes. Is it likely if you type the two commands as you're told to on the website? No.

Thanks, I will look into one of those phones when I replace the Galaxy Note.

The Note 3 is not a Google-made device, it's made by Samsung. Google's own Nexus and Pixel devices allow it in a single button press, I'm unsure of other manufacturers except OnePlus which does the same as Google. As I said in my post, some devices are a lot better than others when it comes to this.

Also, bricking doesn't just happen, if you understand what you're doing you'll be fine. That "some risk" isn't random, it's in the case that you do something incredibly stupid. Get a custom recovery on there as soon as possible and you can pretty much recover anything.

This is simply not true. I've spent 3 years flashing and messing with my phone in many ways.I've hard bricked it only once. When it was updating my phone froze. I didn't do anything stupid. It simply froze and messed with all partitions. It's hard to fuck your phone but it's a possibility.

Sorry, but "froze and messed with all partitions" makes it sound more like you fucked up and flashed the wrong rom or something - flashing an update should never mess with all partitions - only /system and /data really.

Thanks for the info. I will check out those devices when I replace this one.