Can a foreign phone be used in the US?

[desertjedi]

My fiancee is going to bring her brand new "Russian" Samsung Galaxy S5 to the US. Its unlocked and takes two SIM cards. Will I be able to use this phone with Verizon here in the US?

 

[dpham00]

It won't work on Verizon

 

[Feldon]

It would absolutely work on AT&T and might work on T-Mobile, but not Verizon. Verizon uses CMDA which is an extremely backwards tech used only in the USA and parts of China. lol

 

[desertjedi]

But if I buy a new Motorola X Pure, Motorola simply sticks a SIM card in it that's compatible with Verizon, right? They're not going to sell me a phone that only works with Verizon, right!?!?? If true, how is the Russian phone different from the Moto X Pure? Thanks for the replies.

 

[Feldon]

But if I buy a new Motorola X Pure, Motorola simply sticks a SIM card in it that's compatible with Verizon, right? They're not going to sell me a phone that only works with Verizon, right!?!?? If true, how is the Russian phone different from the Moto X Pure? Thanks for the replies.

There are 41 different models of Samsung Galaxy S5. There is one model of Motorola X Pure and yes, it supports Verizon (CDMA) too. Not sure why Motorola was able to accomplish everything they wanted with 1 phone with all the chips and Samsung can't.

Note that Verizon tend to be Richard Craniums about activating non-Verizon phones on their network. You might have to try to several different stores and/or find an employee with sufficient neural activity to get it working.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MotoX/comments/3kfz34/turned_away_from_verizon_trying_to_activate_motox/