Tips For Buying An Unlocked Smart Phone

If you are in the market for a new phone, you might want one that is not officially supported by your phone provider's plan or you might not want to spend the money on a phone that is specifically sold by your provider. This can cause you to turn to the Internet to try to find an unlocked phone. Here are some factors that you should consider when purchasing an unlocked phone.

1. Who actually unlocked the phone?

The first question that you absolutely need to ask yourself is who unlocked the phone in the first place. This is an important question because it will affect warranty information and possible functionality. If you choose to purchase an unlocked phone that has been unlocked by the manufacturer of that phone, then you can feel relatively confident that the phone that you are purchasing will have full functionality. There is also an increased chance that the phone that you have purchased is going to still be covered under warranty, although you'll have to read the details of the specific phone's warranty to find out for sure.

If someone else unlocked the phone, then you might need to double check reviews of the person who unlocked the phone. The phone might not have full functionality if it was unlocked by someone that does not work for the manufacturer and it will almost certainly not be valid under warranty. These phones tend to be much less expensive than phones that are unlocked by the manufacturer, however. You will need to decide if full confidence is worth the extra price and look into return policies.

2. Are you within a GSM network or a CDMA network?

Do research about your area to make sure that you are covered by the GSM network, rather than the CDMA network. The CDMA network is available to phones that do not use SIM cards. Unlocked smart phones will not work on the CDMA network because they require a SIM card for data storage. If you are primarily covered by anything other than the GSM network, then you are not going to be able to use the unlocked phone.

The only challenge to this is if you are purchasing the unlocked phone for travelling. If this is the case, do research about the countries to which you are travelling and see which networks they are operating under. Buy a phone to specifically match those networks.

For more information, talk to a company that specializes in unlocking cell phones or go to websites like the one linked to in this sentence.

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