Hey guys! There’s been a lot of discussion recently about unlock status of the iPhones and compatibility with LTE bands around the world. So maybe this will be interesting to some.
I have preordered a full price T-Mobile version from Apple, it is indeed 100% unlocked, I was able to activate it with another SIM. I am also currently in China and am using it with a China Unicom SIM.
Second point – LTE. On the face of it the iPhone 6S should be 100% compatible with Chinese LTE out of the box. However 4G in China is a premium product, and often needs to be activated as a feature, even though you can select “4G” in Settings -–> Cellular straight away.
For example, when I bought my SIM at the Shanghai airport, I was told that it’s 3G/4G, but I could not get the 4G working. When I was switching from 3G to 4G in the Settings, for a short while signal disappeared (it showed a carrier logo with 1/5, 0/5 signal strength circles and no pictogram for data ) and then jumped back to 3G. I started freaking out, thinking my phone was faulty. However after a night of browsing China Unicom website (using Bing Translate, I don’t know any Chinese!), I was finally able to activate it so I’m not kicked off the 4G network any more. So far the field test shows that I’m on Band 3, by the way.
I have preordered a full price T-Mobile version from Apple, it is indeed 100% unlocked, I was able to activate it with another SIM. I am also currently in China and am using it with a China Unicom SIM.
Second point – LTE. On the face of it the iPhone 6S should be 100% compatible with Chinese LTE out of the box. However 4G in China is a premium product, and often needs to be activated as a feature, even though you can select “4G” in Settings -–> Cellular straight away.
For example, when I bought my SIM at the Shanghai airport, I was told that it’s 3G/4G, but I could not get the 4G working. When I was switching from 3G to 4G in the Settings, for a short while signal disappeared (it showed a carrier logo with 1/5, 0/5 signal strength circles and no pictogram for data ) and then jumped back to 3G. I started freaking out, thinking my phone was faulty. However after a night of browsing China Unicom website (using Bing Translate, I don’t know any Chinese!), I was finally able to activate it so I’m not kicked off the 4G network any more. So far the field test shows that I’m on Band 3, by the way.
