UK 02 iphone on ebay - require info

[angelox]

Hi, my first post. I treid searching but didnt find anything on my first pass, so sorry in advance if this has been answered before.

I'd like to pick up a iphone this xmas, ideally I dont want to pay the full contract with 02 as its very expensive. There a ton of 02 iphones on ebay, but I was wondering if there was some sort of catch.

I want to use a pay as you go or a cheaper contract 02 sim card in there, but can this be do-able and if so, what are the downsides between this and the 02 contract simcard?

Thanks for your time

 

[merlinmagician]

You're biggest problems with not having the contract O2 phone is:

1) You are going to have to jailbreak the phone in order to use another SIM. This means downgrading from firmware 1.1.2. Not necessarily a bad thing but is contingent on point 2.

2) At some point in the future Apple may lock the phone again through a firmware update. There is a risk where the hackers working on iPhone will not be able to unlock it. This hasn't happened yet but may in the future. You will have to wait when a new firmware has been released before installing to make sure there is a hack for it thereby missing out on some of the hoped updates.

I am not saying don't buy one but there is a risk that in the future jailbroken iPhones will end up as iBricks. That doesn't seem likely at the moment but we don't know what Apple is planning.

I have jailbroken my iPhone but ended up having stability problems with the Installer.app. I am on a contract O2 so it didn't give me any problem to lock my phone down again.

Hope this helps.

 

[edesignuk]

^ Jailbreaking DOES NOT unlock an iPhone for use with another SIM not on the 02 contract. There is no unlock for retail boxed 1.1.2 phones.

Though there may be ways of getting another o2 SIM to work in there, but I don't know much about that, do some searching....

 

[merlinmagician]

Apologies if I get the terminology a bit mixed up. edesignuk is right.

 

[sananda]

I want to use a pay as you go or a cheaper contract 02 sim card in there, but can this be do-able and if so, what are the downsides between this and the 02 contract simcard?

downsides of pay and go: you might not get EDGE (i don't and GPRS is super slow), you won't get your email over the o2 network, and you won't get visual voicemail (this applies to the cheaper contract o2 sim card).