On Feb 18, 2011, at 5:56 PM, Ethan Schwartz wrote: > > Are there other situations where you pay full price for a phone, but still > are required to use it with a certain carrier? Maybe the "Google Phone" > with T-Mobile?
Almost all of them. If it is branded by a carrier then it is locked to that carrier's network in some fashion. Unlocking ranges from trivial to impossible. On the trivial side, simply call your carrier and tell them that you'll be traveling abroad and would like to use your phone overseas. They can send an unlock code to the phone. Bear in mind that different GSM carriers use different frequencies. If the phone is GSM-850/1800 and the carrier you want is GSM-900 then it isn't going to work. On the impossible side, if you buy a Verizon phone then you're stuck with Verizon because that phone is CDMA and Verizon is the last major carrier in the US on CDMA. If you buy directly from the manufacturer then it's a maybe. I purchased a Motorola KRZR K1 directly from Motorola a few years ago. This one came unlocked; I could use any carrier's SIM right out of the box. Of course it didn't come with a SIM or service of its own. On the other hand, buying an Incredible directly from HTC is pretty senseless (hah-hah!) since it's a CDMA phone thus you can't use it on any network other than Verizon. --Rich P. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
