I’ve been wanting to buy a new smartphone for quite a while but haven’t been able to afford the one i want.I have found sites that carry the phones unlocked and a heck of alot cheaper.Is it illegal to buy them that way?
No. unlocked phones are completely legal. However, be aware that there are a lot of phoney phones out there. If the price is too good . . . .
I’ve read on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Eleven_Speak_Out_Wireless) that 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless sells unlocked GSM cellphones for their prepaid wireless service. Can anyone confirm that? And what about Petro-Canada Mobility? It seems that these two services offer the exact same handsets, so is it possible that they too are selling unlocked phones?
some do, depending which state
While online i have noticed cell phones that were unlocked. What exactly does this mean? Can use them with any carrier of my choosing?
yes .. unlocked phones means freedom from monopolistic mobile companies
ATT Go Phones sucks, and I would like to get an Unlocked Lg Shine on a go phone contract can I do that?
Any contract phone on AT&T can be used on prepaid. Just buy the Shine on AT&T and use it on prepaid.
Can you use and unlocked cell phone with a monthly plan from other companies not prepaid plans.
Yes, as long as the carrier you choose uses the same technology as your cell phone. This is mainly an issue in the US & Canada. For example, you can’t use a GSM phone (AT&T, T-Mobile) on a CDMA network (Verizon, Sprint) or vice versa.
Some carriers (T-Mo in US) will offer you a less expensive plan for the same features or more features for the money. Most don’t give you a break but at least you don’t need to sign a contract!
I would like to buy an unlocked phone, but im unsure if it will work well with my service plan.
It varies but mainly depends on what country you are from. I got a mobile from the UK that was unlocked but I could not reset the setting to allow me to view WAP pages. So I would be careful, also you may not be able to access some features your mobile operator has. Because of this I now will not buy an unlocked mobile because the setting are all predetermined by the previous mobile provider and need to be changed.
i was thinking of buying a cellphone from one of this places and they say that my sim card (from my razer) can be used in another phone…like a nokia phone that i was looking at. thanks
Yep. know a little here. The beauty of GSM is the SIM card (TDMA and some others don’t have this). The SIM card is your actual account and it can be used in any GSM type phone (which is most of them). Just take it out of one and pop it in another.
Just one little hitch. Phones can be locked so they only work with one carrier. This keeps people from taking there 9.95 phone frpm say Verizon, and using it on their new Cingular account. The phone didn’t cost your provider 9.95, it cost them more like a $100 (maybe $500 for a real upper end phone) and it’s heavily subsidized by the service provider. So they like to lock them so that people can’t take the phones that they helped pay for over to another competitor.
So if your taking a new phone, it either has to be un-locked, or else from the same carrier as your account is with.
Make sense?
Oh, and yes, the SIM card from the Razr will fir the Nokia, you just need to be sure the Nokia is from the same service provider you have your contract with.
(and you thought I was just a pair of good looking legs in a skirt)
My att cellphone broke recently and they want like 200 dollars and it wasnt even my fault for it breaking. And my warranty is out. So i looked on ebay and they have a unlocked P168C gsm att/ t-mobile dual sim card cell phone that is full touch screen. And i wanted know if i could purchase it???
10 points
yeah you can purchase it i recently bought a pearl from ebay and it was unlocked so i just put the sim in and it works fine.. so i guess it will work with yours
I am thinking of buying a tri-band unlocked phone, but do not know which carrier will alllow me to use it with their service (i.e. at&t verizon, tmobile) I would like to sign up with verizon but know they work on an old network? Does anyone know? I am looking at buying the Samsung SGH-U700 Metallic Silver…
Any carrier will work with unlocked cell phones. All you have to do is go to them choose a plan (you can cancel it at any time) and they will give you a Sim card to put in you cell phone and it will work. Good Luck 
I always find unlocked cell phones that I want to buy but I have Sprint. I know you can use unlocked cell phones with other carriers but I’m not sure if it will work with Sprint cause they don’t use sim cards.
It depends on the network that the phone operates on. Typically "Unlocked" refers to a GSM phone that is not SIM Locked to a specific carrier. If the phone is GSM, you will need a SIM Card to operate it, which means it is not compatible with SPRINT. If the phone is an unlocked CDMA network phone, you should not have a problem.
If the reason you are looking for an unlocked phone is that you want to upgrade your phone without changing your contract I would suggest buying a used SPRINT phone and transferring your phone number.
You can find thousands of unlocked phones and used SPRINT phones online at www.zendoo.com
