In August 2019, OnePlus launched the Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro 5G for $840. The phone is a 5G variant of the OnePlus 7 Pro, which was released four months before in May. It has the same internal specifications, and differs only with respect to the modem. The Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro 5G used the first-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 modem to provide sub-6GHz 5G connectivity on Sprint's mid-band 5G network. The other major difference between the unlocked 4G OnePlus 7 Pro and the Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro 5G is the software. The Sprint variant doesn't have an officially unlockable bootloader unlike the 4G unlocked variant. The T-Mobile 4G variant lets users unlock the bootloader as soon as they have paid off their device, but the Sprint variant doesn't. However, an unofficial bootloader unlock method has now been found for the Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro 5G phone.
The team behind the unofficial bootloader unlock used to operate a mail-in service for unofficially unlocking the bootloader of Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro devices via approval of user requests. However, that method has now been discontinued due to a recent development, as the team has now acquired an MSM tool to allow unlocking the bootloader on the Sprint model without needing to mail the device or do anything remotely.
Users are advised to treat this unofficial bootloader method with discretion, as there is no guarantee that things won't go wrong. Once their device has been bootloader unlocked, they will not be able to use OTA updates, as expected. They will either have to flash updates via fastboot or reset their device to stock and lock the bootloader to update via OTA once more.
The procedure to unofficially unlock the bootloader on the Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro 5G is noted below.
- Download the unlocking MSMDownloadTool from here.
- Reboot to EDL mode (Volume Up + Volume Down + USB).
- Allow the MSMTool to run to completion while staying alert.
- As soon as the MSMTool finishes, it will reboot the phone. The important step here is don't allow it to boot to system. Users must interrupt the boot by entering fastboot.
- Immediately run "fastboot flashing unlock".
- Users should now have an unlocked bootloader.
This is an unofficial bootloader unlock exploit and it's possible OnePlus will patch this in the future. For further information, users should refer to the forum thread.
XDA Forum thread for unofficial bootloader unlock for the Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro 5G