[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] jimfunk:
I'm writing this message since a lot of people are probably thinking that their warranty is still intact, since a lot of posts here and elsewhere claim that it is.

Before I unlocked my Telus One X, I wanted to be sure my warranty would be honored so I read all the materials I could, including the warranty text, the message on HTCDev.com, and various posts on this, and other forums.

Everything indicated that the warranty would only apply to direct consequences of the unlocked bootloader, eg: bricking your phone. This is reasonable, and it would be reasonable to assume that hardware defects would continue to be covered. I'm totally OK with that.

However, it seems that this is not, in fact, the case.

My One X recently started having a backlight issue, where squeezing the phone in the middle would cause the backlight to go out. Eventually, the backlight stopped working altogether, though I could see the screen if I looked hard enough in the right light, and it played sounds and received calls normally. I brought it in to my Telus dealer for repair and, since I'm in Canada, it was shipped to a company called FutureTel.

After a week, I had to chase down the status of my repair. Essentially FutureTel stated, according to the representative at the Telus dealer, that the phone was "beyond repair" and gave me the option of buying a replacement phone. I was given no more information.

This didn't make sense to me, so I started calling around to all involved. The dealer told me to call Telus.

Telus: We have nothing to do with that. The dealer sent it to HTC. You need to call HTC.

This is where it starts getting extremely odd...

HTC: We don't warranty these phones. We sell them to Telus/Rogers/Bell, and they "modify" them so we have nothing to do with it. We can't even provide a warranty due to this modification. For warranties, they contract FutureTel. You need to call them directly, here's their number

FutureTel: The warranty was denied due to "illegal software." (I asked what law was violated, and she wouldn't elaborate) We only handle warranties based on HTC policies. They are the only party that actually provides the warranty. Call them

HTC (again): Previous HTC guy was wrong. We set the policy, and the policy states that "If you root the device, your warranty is void."

This really bugged me, since I didn't see any such statement on any documentation from HTC or Telus, so I asked for clarification: "Where is this stated, and what, exactly, does it say?"

He responded with a lot of vague "in the warranty", and "on our website" answers but could not definitively find any such statement. I quoted the text from HTCDev.com and he said that didn't matter. It's the warranty, and directed me to a page on their website under support listing the warranty policies.

There is a curious omission of Canada in the list, and we went back and forth many times with him claiming I followed his instructions wrong before he eventually said, "just look at the United States one."

The thing is, It doesn't actually state what is claimed to be stated in that document, despite claims that it did. Under "LIMITED WARRANTY STATEMENT" Section 7, it lists the instances that void the warranty. Nothing about unlocking or bootloaders or software of any kind.

I kept asking for the exact section that voids the warranty, and eventually, he pointed to a section under the software EULA:

If you are familiar with EULAs and agreements, you know what this means: The phone comes with software preloaded that wasn't written by HTC: eg: Facebook. If you use that software, then it's own license will be in effect. Read this as: "Facebook is responsible for their own software. We just handed it to you"

No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the guy to accept the actual interpretation of the passage and he continued to state that it means that if I "use any 3rd-party software, the warranty is void."

Right then.

I asked for an escalation in hopes of getting someone who can parse the English language. Unfortunately, I got the same thing. She pointed to the exact same passage, claiming that it voids the warranty. I tried to point out how ridiculous that reading was: "With your interpretation, that means that any software I install, even via the Play store, voids the warranty." Her response: "It says nothing about apps."

Great. That section is entirely about apps...

So, I asked them that if this is the case, then to please amend the text on HTCDev.com to state clearly that the warranty is void if you continue. She said she would pass that along. (right...)

So here is the bottom line: HTC WILL NOT COVER YOUR PHONE IF YOU UNLOCK THE BOOTLOADER. If you are worried about your warranty and you are considering using HTCDev to unlock it, do not assume you will be covered as many other posts state.

If you want coverage, and you want to unlock, you really only have 2 options:

Unlock using another method that does not "mark" the phone

Get 3rd-party coverage from you provider or somewhere else. It seems that people have had good luck with those, despite bootloader status