[LG V35 Questions & Answers] ChazzMatt:
Then AT&T has changed their policy -- but an important difference is you are still a customer in good standing. In the past, AT&T would only sim card unlock while money was still owed if you could convince them you were going on some foreign business trip or extended vacation where you needed your phone.

With this bad ESN, it's a former customer who has not paid for the phone or fulfilled the terms of the contract (like 2-year contract for almost "free" phone). Now they are trying to sell it. The IMEI will be banned among U.S. carriers, besides the SIM card lock. In other countries, you would have to rely upon a 3rd party unlock service. There's really no guarantee in those situations. They will offer to refund the unlock service fee if it doesn't work, but you've still paid for the useless phone.

---------- Post added at 08:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:34 AM ----------

Back to the original question in the op... which I realize was posted back in April. A lot has changed since then.

First, comparing development for May 2014 phone (4 years ago) to a late 2017 phone that had only been released 6 or 7 months isn't quite fair. ;) Security was way different back then -- you didn't even have to unlock the bootloader to install TWRP and root!

Second, since May 2018 (after this thread was created),

ROM development

for V30 has taken off

since we now have root and bootloader unlock for all V30/V30+/V30S variants

(except for T-mobile H932). I count 8 custom ROMs for just on the first page alone. In 3 or 4 years, check back and then compare development to the LG G3!

Now about the (2017)V30/V30+/(2018)V30S vs. the 2018 V35...

LG V30/V30+/V30S are all code name "JOAN" LG phones and our JOAN TWRP, bootloader unlock exploit and all ROMs are compatible with all LG Joan phones, even the V30S. People with LG V30S have successfully rooted their phones with our WTF method and installed V30 ROMs. It's just another V30 variant, like the V30+. The only difference between any of the V30 variants is just RAM and amount of internal storage. I know when LG introduced the V30S in early 2018, they tried to sell it as a "different" phone from the V30. It was the first LG phone to have the ThinQ branding with AI camera -- but now all the V30 with Oreo have it. ;) In spite of LG's marketing spin, the 2018 V30S is just another V30, like V30+.

Whereas, the 2018 LG V35 is a completely different phone from the LG V30 -- different Snapdragon chipset, different cameras, even slightly different camera placement (some cases won't fit). Code name JUDYP. V35 doesn't have bootloader unlock, root or TWRP. Even if it ever gets bootloader unlock, you would need a dev to make a "JUDYP" TWRP for it in order to root it.

Between the two, I would rather have a V30S (6GB RAM, up to 256GB internal storage -- but still "Joan") rather than V35.

But since you can get "mint" V30+ on Ebay for $320 nowadays, it seems that's really the sweet spot. That's really the reason I bought 5 of these phones. The last two were mint V30+ LS998 off eBay, which I quickly converted to US998 and bootloader unlocked.

I've asked XDA mods to create a separate forum for the V35 -- since it is a completely different phone from the V30. But they say there's not enough demand, so best current solution is thread tabbed markers where people can search and find random threads for V35 posted in other dedicated forums.

Or moving all V35 posts to the general "Android Development" forum for phones that don't meet the popularity threshold. So, for now the V35 people are homeless.