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i saw a kid.. literally 15

L

Legionnaire

Suspended
Original poster
Oct 10, 2011
331
88
he took the unopened iphone 4s i had, opened it, put his simcards, etc did stuff to it, hooked to pc, etc... anyway
10minutes later, he had it unlocked and working on his carrier (was an att) phone. was now using it flawlessly on GCI alaska network.

how do people do this? i was amazed, he said he could do it for my phone to if i didnt activate it already, guess he has to do it before it gets activated, it was slick. anyway, why do people make such a big deal about unlocked phones? i didnt realize it was that easy, took him maybe MAYBE 10 mins max iphone 4s 16gb att phone
 
Yes you can easily unlock a phone. But if you boughed it locked with a contract, then you get a discount on the phone but you are tight with a contract at the operator.

So you can unlock it, but the contract is still in place. So unlocking the phone with such a contract is only useful when you travel abroad then in that case you could temporarily get a local sim card and have cheaper tariffs. But you will still have to pay your monthly contract even if you don't use it at that time.

Getting an unlocked phone from the starts gives you freedom to select a contract or even a pre-paid account with any carrier you like. It will be easier to switch. Although even in those cases you will have to take the contract you have into account.
 
When I sold my old iP4, the buyer took it out of box, changed language to Chinese, then typed all kinds of stuff - he was very fast and in 2-3 min was talking on it!
 
To be honest, all iPhones should've been sold as unlocked. I mean why bother and worry about losing customer.

We paid upfront cost for the phone, signed the contract and that's it. As long we pay dataplan cost until 2 years, that's all what matters, right?

Two years later ...

Most people getting bored and need to upgrade their phone, renew the contract. So I dont really see the benefit of having the phone locked to certain carriers now we have iPhone off the AT&T's hook.
 
Legionnaire said:
anyway, why do people make such a big deal about unlocked phones?
Click to expand...

Either your phone was unlocked already since you bought it at full price or he installed some irreversible baseband that permanently damaged your phone.
 
iSayuSay said:
To be honest, all iPhones should've been sold as unlocked. I mean why bother and worry about losing customer.
Click to expand...

Carriers think that phone locking stops them losing customers by putting a barrier between their customers and switching carriers.

Even if the carrier offers a free and official unlock for their devices, it is still a small obstacle that many wont bother with for the sake of saving a small amount of money each month or better coverage etc.
 
I found out, on GCI if you bring an IPhone to there network, its 60./unlim month everything AND you get 450 FREE credit for your contract, 1/4 of ur contract knocked off, which means the kid just got a free iphone. sweet deal for him
 
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