According to the Spanish technical service of Asus, the brand would have removed the possibility of unlocking the bootloader of Zenfone mobiles. This makes rooting the manufacturer’s smartphones impossible.
One of the advantages of Android is its flexibility. It is possible to customize the system to different degrees, for example by changing the application launcher, or by downloading an icon pack from the play store. If you want to go even further and modify the system in depth, you often have to go through rooting Android. For simplicity, this manipulation grants you all rights on your smartphoneallowing you to do more or less of what you want.
An essential prerequisite for root is the bootloader unlock. This small program acts as an intermediary between the system (Android) and the device. He is in charge of start your smartphone. By default, it is locked for precisely prevent major android changes. Without an official announcement, Asus would have blocked the possibility of unlocking the bootloader of its Zenfonewhich by extension prevent them from being rooted.
Asus would block the possibility of unlocking the bootloader to root the Zenfone
When a user notices that he cannot touch the bootloader of his Zenfone 9, he contacts Asus technical support to ask when this will be possible. It is indeed not uncommon for manufacturers deploy the feature after a model launch. The response from support is clear: “[…] we have forwarded your question to our repair center and they informed us that unlocking the bootloader is not possible and will not be possible in the future”. The service specifies that the Zenfone 9 and the Zenfone 10 are concerned.
No other explanation has been given and it is currently impossible to know why Asus would have taken such a decision. Even though rooting Android smartphones isn’t as common as it was a few years ago, completely removing the possibility of doing it is not really of interest. It is likely that the discontent rises enough among users for Asus to express itself fairly quickly on the issue. In 2018, Xiaomi had to officially deny that it wanted to prevent its smartphones from being rooted.