The Samsung Galaxy S6 was the last Samsung Galaxy device to launch in the US with an Exynos chip. What's also notable is that the U.S. carrier Galaxy S6 models could be bootloader unlocked. That sparked the developer community to make lots of ROMs for the devices. It was a great time to own a Samsung phone in the U.S. Unfortunately, this only lasted for a year. When the Galaxy S7 launched, Samsung shifted back to using Qualcomm processors and wouldn't allow bootloader unlocking. Since the S6, there hasn't been a flagship Samsung phone in the U.S. that could be bootloader unlocked... until now. We've been informed the 5G Samsung Galaxy S10 from Sprint can be bootloader unlocked.

Thanks to XDA Recognized Developer / Retired Forum Moderator elliwigy, we learned that Sprint's 5G Galaxy S10 is bootloader unlockable. He managed to test if it was unlockable in a Sprint store on a demo model. The unit he tested was a retail unit running retail software. He was able to enable the OEM Unlock toggle in settings without changing any settings, just like any other Samsung phone. Two other people told us they tested Sprint units in different stores in different areas and found that the bootloader was unlockable.

This is great news for anyone who wants to buy this $1,300 beast of a smartphone from Sprint. Sadly, the regular Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, and Galaxy S10e are still not bootloader unlockable. Since the 5G Galaxy S10 is the newest flagship to launch on Sprint, we hope the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 10 will also be bootloader unlockable.

If you own the Sprint 5G Samsung Galaxy and are interested in developing for it, you can check out our forums below to discuss and work with fellow users of the device.

Samsung Galaxy S10 5G Forums