That's a good point. Xiaomi deserves praise for keeping the bootloader user-friendly.

LineageOS provides timely Android security updates, but only the manufacturer can provide vendor security patches even when a custom OS is installed. If Xiaomi did this monthly, its phones would be as hacker-friendly as Google's Pixel phones.

Compared to Samsung, Sony, iPhone or recently Oppo their flag ship phones always appeared at a reasonable price point. Also their light/$2-300 phones series usually wasn't a complete joke like with many other major names.

In the China brand lifecycle, Xiaomi was just at a different phase of the cycle than Huawei. Now they also have €1000+ phones to compete with Samsung and Apple flagships. Similar story happened with OnePlus.

I would like to hope that they wouldn't, based on their origins. Xiaomi was once only a small software shop, making a skin for android devices that was easily installable and actually quite good for the time. They had a huge community, and nearly all major devices had it, and I believe almost all of them required an unlocked bootloader.

If Xiaomi went ahead and locked bootloaders on their own will (instead of gov't requiring it), they would be crushing the same thing that allowed them to become successful.

I still don't understand why they thought that's a good idea. Or why any of them thinks it is.

Xiaomi does not make Android One phones anymore, and there are some preinstalled apps from Xiaomi. Also, it's full of Google Apps that are spyware but from a different company...

iirc, they stopped producing phones with Android One around a year ago. So if you want to buy a new one you will have to get one with miui. Which is, like i said, is packed with spyware.

When i bought my Redmi 4a, as a backup phone, i had to root it and flash with lineageos, because the amount of telemetry that phone was sending somewhere was straight up absurd. Same story with Mi 8.