Non-motoring > Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones Miscellaneous
Thread Author: busbee Replies: 17
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New Sat 28 Apr 12 13:22 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - busbee
Any experience of the workings of unlocked (sim-free) phones?

1) What happens if you have a phone that has been unlocked and you click the options to 'reset to the original factory settings' ? Does that restore it to being tied to its original network? Or is it still unlocked?

2) Have you experienced an unlocked mobile phone that is able to make outgoing calls but is not able to receive them?

I have. The sending phone, be it a land line one or a mobile, would send the number-tones out, but it did not get a response so as to send the (bur bur) ring signals, yet the receive phone would often log that call and its number.

I am minded to buy an unlocked phone. How risky is it? Should I only buy a manufacturer's sim free version? Or is the unlocked one its equal?

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New Sat 28 Apr 12 14:58 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - Bromptonaut
Bought a Sony k750i to replace one I lost. At time of purchase it was locked to O2 but got it unlocked by a local shop. It's been fine on Orange ever since. Only issue is a handful of web related functions that don't quite work but could probably be cured by re-loading Orange software. As I only call and text it makes no odds to me.

At least for a while many phones from Carphone Warehouse were unlocked anyway. The wife's old Sony, bought on Orange PAYG, works fine on Vodafone.
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New Sat 28 Apr 12 17:05 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - John H
>> At least for a while many phones from Carphone Warehouse were unlocked anyway
>>

They still are.

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New Sat 28 Apr 12 16:07 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - VxFan
>> 1) What happens if you have a phone that has been unlocked and you click
>> the options to 'reset to the original factory settings' ? Does that restore it to
>> being tied to its original network? Or is it still unlocked?

The 3 phones I've previously had that were unlocked didn't change when I've done a restore. Unlocking tends to just involve changing the firmware settings, but the restore function is a software reset.
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New Sat 28 Apr 12 16:33 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - Old Navy
On the rare occasion that I need a new phone I buy a sim free one, never had a problem anywhere in the world whatever sim I have used.
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New Sat 28 Apr 12 17:22 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - busbee
The phone that had the reception problem was never tested before it was unlocked so the reception fault could have nothing to do with the unlocking. I used both an Orange sim in it and a friends one that I think was an O2 one. Same with both.

John -- interesting about car warehouse unlocked ones as I am about to buy a phone. When you think about it, they having unlocked ones reduces their stock needs when selling for various phone operators.
Last edited by: busbee on Sat 28 Apr 12 at 17:25
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New Sat 28 Apr 12 17:39 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - NortonES2
Just bought a budget Samsung for wife's birthday - transferred over her existing PAYG Orange simcard - from Carphone Warehouse. Very helpful setting it up etc, even though we weren't in the market for a contract phone or anything exotic.
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New Sat 28 Apr 12 18:23 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - zookeeper
beware....samsung, if you want to use iplayer and such the ACE doesnt take flash player app and never will
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New Sat 28 Apr 12 18:46 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - movilogo
1) if it is originally unlocked when left factory, it will still remain unlocked after hard/soft reset.

IIRC during unlocking the ROM is updated, so after that a refresh will still keep it unlocked. But I'm not 100% sure if this is the case for all mobiles.

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New Sun 29 Apr 12 00:15 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - NortonES2
Thanks Zookeeper, but iplayer etc is below the horizon. Or above maybe? Whatever it is:) Just a simple phone is all that is req'd....
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 03:14 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - VxFan
>> beware....samsung, if you want to use iplayer and such the ACE doesnt take flash player
>> app and never will

And yet the iPhone can use the iplayer app and doesn't support flash.
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 08:23 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - R.P.
phone-shop.tesco.com/mobile-phones-and-sim-cards/pay-as-you-go-phones/SIM-FREE-Samsung-E1080i-212-5470


Saw one of these in Tesco yesterday NIL - can't go wrong.
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 11:32 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - busbee
On the basis of experience of only two Samsung phones, they are not good for sending texts, because of not indicating a pending upper and lower case, before you actually type. So there is a lot of rubbing out. I found it a nuisance.

It is so with the RP one.

With my old Nokia there is a little picture top left that shows. upper, upper going to lower, and all lower case.
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 21:35 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - NortonES2
Seems to be the case:) SWMBO hasn't yet sorted out the setting for caps etc. She will have to decipher the manual. Its a Samsung Tocco Lite.
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 11:03 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - rtj70
>> And yet the iPhone can use the iplayer app and doesn't support flash.

Isn't that via an iPlayer App that uses alternative streams from the BBC. I doubt the iPhone or iPad can show the iPlayer videos (or any other BBC ones) in a web browser. They never used to at least.

In a web-browser the server will detect the platform and serve pages accordingly. And so when an Android device is detected they can send appropriate pages etc. And make the assumption that Flash is supported.
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 11:08 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - R.P.
BBC have an app for iStuff that plays their vids - iPlayer either works from Safari or an app. I have an app on my iPad for iPlayer.
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 13:17 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - Stuartli
>> John -- interesting about car warehouse unlocked ones as I am about to buy a phone. When you think about it, they having unlocked ones reduces their stock needs when
selling for various phone operators. >>

I bought my unlocked HTC Wildfire S at Carphone Warehouse six months ago (using Virgin Mobile at the time but switching to GiffGaff, part of O2). So the sales assistant sold me an O2 SIM and PAYG card with the HTC thus reducing the cost of the phone, as the network operators sell the phones at a reduced price if locked to their network...:-))
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New Sun 29 Apr 12 18:31 
 Sim Free, Unlocked, Mobile Phones - Zero
The iPhone can only be
a: purchased new unlocked,
b: Unlocked by the Network Carrier

This is performed when the phone is first synched with apple via iTunes, and checked at every firmware update via iTunes.

c: Jailbroken, and then the GSM baseband can be unlocked. You dont update a jailbroken phone via iTunes
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