Maybe your foldable deserves something a little more special than One UI
Do you absolutely despise Samsung for shipping One UI 5 on your Galaxy Z Flip 4 or Fold 4? Okay, well, settle down — this stuff isn’t worth getting terribly mad about. But if you would rather use another graphical interface that suits your taste or stretch the limits of what your folding phablet or clamshell can do, well, there’s some good news and bad news.
The good news is that Samsung has opened up the kernel source code for both devices. In order to access them, you’ll need to head over to the Samsung Open Source web portal and then type in the model numbers for each device — the Flip 4’s number is SM-F721 while the Fold 4’s is SM-F936.
Our friends over at XDA-Developers note that the “AVGA” suffix in the kernel version numbers signify that these builds are ones intended for devices tied to US wireless carriers. This is where the bad news comes in for custom ROM lovers as most if not all carriers in the US will have disabled the “OEM unlocking” item in the developer options on these devices.
So while developers may still be able to use the code to create their own ROMs, it’ll be a tougher task to get them properly loaded on the specific variant of device that these kernels came from.
That said, if you happen to own an unlocked Flip 4 or Fold 4, you should still be able to load a ROM as soon as they’re available.
