We all know by now that Verizon isn’t going to have an unlocked bootloader on any of their phones. Except maybe the Nexus, if they ever get another one. Normally there are developer editions of Verizon phones, which really shouldn’t need to exist, but they do. Both AT&T and Verizon don’t allow their bootloaders to be unlocked, so you’re seeing more and more Developer Edition phones. Basically what Developer Edition phones are, are phones that have their bootloader unlocked and you can pretty much do anything you want to them since they are not under warranty and you paid full price for the device. Hence why it’s called the Developer Edition.
We’ve seen many Developer Editions over the years, mostly with Samsung and Motorola phones on Verizon. In fact, Motorola has a Developer Edition Moto X for Verizon and a GSM version that will work on AT&T and T-Mobile. It now appears that over on Samsung’s website, there is a type of place holder for the Galaxy Note 3 Developer Edition on Verizon, as you can see from the image above. Which pretty much means it’s coming. We just don’t know when. I’d expect the price to be around $700 as well, since you’re paying full price and since the Galaxy Note 3 is a bigger phone than the Galaxy S4 (which is around $600-650 brand new).
There’s no official word on release yet, but it’ll probably still be a while. I don’t think Samsung really plans on selling a lot of these. But they will get kudos for offering it. Since Verizon won’t let you unlock your bootloader without some crazy hackery and magic. Some Developer Editions come out within weeks, others can be months. And sometimes they never come out. So we’ll have to wait and see.
How many of you would buy a Verizon Galaxy Note 3 Developer Edition? Let us know in the comments below.