Advice on unlocked phones - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Slava · 06-24-2012, 10:11 PM

CP, I am considering buying a phone locked to another carrier (I'm with Rogers). Basically I don't want to upgrade yet because I have a blackberry and the new OS will come out sometime soonish and I'll wait for that. In the meantime though, I could use a newer phone.

Yes, I could buy one totally unlocked and pay say $250. I could buy one locked though and pay say $20 to have it unlocked after and save about $150 if not more. So, couple questions:

1. Is there a reason I wouldn't go that route and unlock it after the fact?

2. If I buy a model that Rogers never carried (I think) can I still unlock it and put my SIM in and use it as normal?

I have obviously never done this before and just wanted to see if my kind of plan makes sense or if there was anything I should know.

Hack&Lube · 06-24-2012, 11:24 PM

As you aren't specifying a model, it's tough to give you any advice because the difficulty of unlocking and the prices vary depending on model. Once unlocked, you can use any phone with any carrier by inserting that carrier's sim card.

Not all phones can be unlocked (obscure Android models that the scene/community haven't released anything for or unlock codes are unavailable for, the newer iPhones and all upcoming iOS 6 phones that won't have unlocks available for some time, etc.).

Why could you use a newer phone right now? Why not get rid of the Blackberry outright?

Slava · 06-25-2012, 06:47 AM

Well the phone I have now is a Bold and its decent, but I've had a number of issues lately. The most predominant is a battery that is terrible. I've debated just buying a battery, but a used phone doesn't seem to cost all that much more.

I don't know what model I would go with. I like the 9670 but I don't think that its a sim card model at all.

As for why I don't want to drop Blackberry, there are a number of reasons. One being the interaction between my playbook and phone currently and then things like a physical keyboard. I still might go that route in the future though, and that's another reason that I would rather stick to a used phone this time around.