Lately, Motorola has been doing all the right things for publicity. First of all they released KitKat first on the Verizon Moto X. I’m still scratching my head at that. Last week they also announced a crazy cheap Moto G, which seems to be a pretty good phone, especially for $179 off-contract. Now today, Motorola has announced they are changing their tune on developer editions of their devices.
The first change to their Developer Edition device is in regards to unlocking the bootloader. Unlocking your bootloader with Motorola’s consent will NO LONGER void your warranty. That is a huge deal. On top of that, Motorola is stating that any Developer Edition purchased in 2012 and 2013 which the warranty has been voided, will be reinstated.
The second change is something us Nexus users are quite used to. That is factory images. Motorola is going to be posting factory images for all the developer editions of their phones. So if you’ve installed a ROM on your Developer Edition Moto X or DROID Maxx and want to return to stock, or having issues, all you’ll need to do is reinstall the factory image, which is pretty simple. No other manufacturer is doing this besides Google and their Nexus devices. This is a huge step forward for those that love flashing ROMs on their devices.
As you’ve probably thought, this is a huge step for Motorola. Making their developer edition devices even more desirable. Which in the past, I’m sure they haven’t sold too many since they are full retail price and most people don’t want to pay $600-700 for a new phone. I’d love to see other manufacturers start to do this. But I’m afraid it won’t happen. But this should help get more developers onto the Motorola ship, and get more custom kernels and custom ROMs for these great Motorola devices.