Urgent iPad Question! :/

[knuckleball]

Hi there,

This is a bit of a convoluted story, but...

In Canada, my mother is running a charity draw for a local hospice with the grand prize being an iPad 2 3G. She had my sister, who lives in Boston, pick up an iPad 2. Since I'm visiting Boston right now and the draw is next week, I'm bringing the iPad 2 back to Canada.

I just looked at the box, however, and saw that it's a Verizon iPad 2 3G. Is this going to be a major problem? There are major CDMA and HSPA+ networks in Canada (Bell, Telus), but is this iPad genuinely locked to Verizon? If, for example, someone very inexperienced with computers wins the iPad, will that person have difficulty setting it up because it's a "Verizon" iPad 2? Or will it automatically reassign itself to Bell/Telus?

I'm leaving Boston tomorrow and the draw is on Friday, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Darwin]

Short answer is yes, its most likely going to be locked to Verizon. I recall iPad 1s weren't locked so there might be some confusion.

I don't know about your CDMA providers and the frequencies they use but HSPA isn't supported at all on the Verizon model. You'd have better luck getting an AT&T model and even then that will need to be unlocked.

The Wifi only model would save you all that hassle altogether.

 

[NikeTalk]

Yea that's gonna be a major problem cause it will only work on Verizon's network.

 

[knuckleball]

Eek - thanks for the replies, guys. At least I caught it when I did. Now to scramble like a mad person to see if I can find a white 32gb iPad 2 3G in Boston.

*headache*

 

[goMac]

You'd have better luck getting an AT&T model and even then that will need to be unlocked.

This isn't true. The ATT models are not locked, they will work on any canadian carrier out of the box. You just have to pick up a new SIM from the provider you want to use.