Many Lenovo P2 owners are unable to unlock the bootloader, Lenovo is investigating

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

The Lenovo P2 was launched near the end of 2016. It featured a 5.5″ FHD screen with the power-efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon 625, but what made the phone most appealing was its massive 5,100mAh battery which is somewhat of a rarity these days. It launched with Android 6.0 Marshmallow and was officially updated to Android 7.0 Nougat, but it’s unlikely that the device will receive Android Oreo. For current owners of the device who want to get away from Lenovo’s software, the P2 has an official LineageOS 14.1 ROM that can be flashed. However, there’s just one significant problem that has plagued many Lenovo P2 owners for around a year: an inability to unlock the bootloader.

Unlocking the bootloader is required to flash a custom ROM because you need to disable the bootloader’s boot signature verification if you want to flash a custom boot image, such as the one that comes with any AOSP-based ROM like LineageOS. Typically, the process involves enabling “OEM unlocking” in Developer Options and then running the “fastboot oem unlock” command (with or without an unlock code, depending on the device) in the bootloader.

For the Lenovo P2, when you try to enable OEM unlocking you have to first accept some terms that state you will be voiding the warranty by unlocking the bootloader. If you accept those terms, you can then login with your Lenovo account and then you’re forced to wait for 14 days before Lenovo’s servers register your device so you can unlock the bootloader. However, as many people on the official Lenovo P2 forums have discovered, they are unable to register for the bootloader unlock waiting period because of an error that says their Lenovo ID email address hasn’t been verified (even though it has.)

After nearly a year of complaints, it seems that the company is finally investigating the problem. Last week, a “Senior MotoAgent” posted a comment on the forums stating that the company is looking into the issue. No updates on the issue have been posted since that comment, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s been going on. We certainly hope that Lenovo isn’t intentionally blocking bootloader unlocking to prevent users from flashing custom ROMs. If it was intentional, perhaps to prevent users from disabling certain pre-installed apps (which can easily be done without root by the way), then that would be a silly move on their part.

Given the error message, it’s likely just a glitch with their system, though I can’t help but say that forcing users to wait for 14 days just for their servers to whitelist a device is really unnecessary. Other companies such as Xiaomi implement mandatory waiting periods, and it does nothing but annoy users. We hope this issue is resolved quickly by Lenovo.