Do they seriously lock the bootloader of a "repairable" phone? That's the most important feature for me, which has prolonged the life of all my Android devices by several years.

From my experience with some of their models - they had been "unlockable". After some quick googling it seems it might have changed for some of their phones. Can someone with up to date knowledge correct me?

As long as there's a way to unlock it, does it matter? Do it once and it's done forever.

I think you’re misunderstanding the Android bootloader model. All the Android phones I saw when researching one to buy came with locked bootloaders, even the easily-unlocked Google Pixel series. So it’s not even a question whether the bootloader will arrive unlocked. What differentiates models is whether “there’s a way to unlock it” – plenty of models don’t support any such way. (I didn’t consider some classes of Android phones in my research of which to buy, so this could be a faulty generalization.)

The parent comments weren’t specific about whether this phone’s bootloader can be unlocked, but when they talk about this phone’s locked bootloader, I think unlockability is the issue they are really talking about.

Fair, but Nokia sells/has sold many unlockable-bootloader devices, and nothing in this article suggests either way.

Android one isn't dead?