Xiaomi is disabling some of its devices when imported to certain regions

Re:Xiaomi is disabling some of its devices when imported to ... by izacus on Sunday September 12, 2021 @03:27AM (#28499268)

For carrier devices it's quite common - and not just Android. I have an iPhone at home which refuses to work until you connect it to the internet and plug in a SIM card. It has to check for carrier unlock since it was sold as a locked phone in UK originally and now needs activation before functioning on each reset.

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Re:Xiaomi is disabling some of its devices when imported to ... by sundvor on Sunday September 12, 2021 @03:59AM (#28499382)

I have an "older" (not really that old, an S10 5G) phone that I keep as a backup. It didn't need anything to start being usable after a full reset, not even a sim card; you just had to skip all the login prompts.

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Re:Xiaomi is disabling some of its devices when imported to ... by izacus on Sunday September 12, 2021 @04:34AM (#28499501)

Yes, "common on carrier devices" doesn't mean "every device has it". It's more common on some carriers - e.g. I had a lot of fun times getting Verizon test devices to work in Europe because they wanted to activate on CDMA network (non-existent on the continent) as part of their setup process.

These locks have started to become less and less common these days though.

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Re:Xiaomi is disabling some of its devices when imported to ... by sundvor on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @09:43AM (#28538939)

Ah, that's interesting - and that would have to be a very strong "good luck with that" case.

My S105G is a carrier device (Telstra), but as you say they're moving to not lock them down anymore which is a lot nicer experience.

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