What Constitutes an Unlocked Phone?

I got into this about a year or so ago. I was wanting to get away from Verizon and go to either Patriot Mobil or Straightalk. My S5 was long paid off and I was wanting to lower my bill. Once I found out they had to be unlocked phones I gave up

 

Just go on Ebay, type in "unlocked XXXXX" where XXXXXX is the brand and type of phone you want and you'll find one.

 

I have an unlocked Samsung S7 from Best Buy, works with:

Carrier Compatibility
AT&T, Cricket, H2O Wireless, Net10, Simple Mobile, Sprint, T-Mobile, TRACFONE, Verizon

Network

• Voice Band
  CDMA2000 1X 1900
• Universal Unlocked
  Yes
• Data Transmission Type
  DC-HSDPA, DC-HSPA+, EDGE, EV-DO, FDD-LTE, GPRS, HSPA+, HSUPA, LTE, LTE Advanced, TDD-LTE, VoLTE
• Data Transmission Operating Band
  3G Band 1, 3G Band 2, 3G Band 4, 3G Band 5, 3G Band 8
• Wireless Compatibility
  Bluetooth, Wireless A, Wireless AC, Wireless B, Wireless G, Wireless N
• Network Type
  CDMA, GSM
• 4G LTE Band
  1, 12, 13, 2, 20, 25, 26, 29, 3, 30, 38, 39, 4, 40, 41, 5, 7, 8
• GSM 2G Frequency
  1800, 1900, 850, 900
• CDMA 2G Frequency
  1900, 850
• GSM 3G Frequency
  1700, 1900, 2100, 850, 900
• CDMA 3G Frequency
  1900, 800
• 4G LTE Frequency
  1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2300, 2500, 2600, 700, 850

 

If you go to www.gsmarena.com and put you phone info [like samsung s5] into the search feature, you can see what carriers the phone can use. You can also see what bands the phone can access and a whole lot more technical data.

 

I think most of the phones these days are dual band capable anymore. gsm and cdma. And will work on all 4 carriers.

 

You can also buy an unlocked phone directly from the manufacturer or from Amazon with full warranty and all the info you need for each model and compatible service providers is there. The benefit of the unlocked phone is less preloaded garbage bloatware apps etc from the carriers and you can take your phone anywhere and use any sim card.

Mine is an unlocked Sony Xperia Xa2 6" screen with 4gig of ram and 64 gig memory with a 128gig SD card. Cost me $400 including the taxes and overnight FedEx directly from Sony. I just popped in my existing AT&T sim card and went about my business.

 

I have a question ( raises hand ).

What difference does it make? What's the benefit?

 

Well you can get a nice phone for significantly less money than the carriers charge and contract free. We travel internationally as well so there's no messing around with the carrier if I want to swap my Sim card for a prepaid Sim card in Dubai or Spain etc.

 

I have an IPHONE 6 that I originally got from AT&T at least 3 years ago. It was actually purchased by the company I worked for and when I left the company they let me keep it and let me take my phone number with me. I don't think the phone is unlocked, but I transferred my service to Straight Talk Wireless, and put in the SIM card they supplied and it had worked fine ever since. Not sure if that helps at all.