Locked vs Unlocked / Carrier purchased vs Samsung purchased??

[bertsirkin]

I've been with Verizon for many years and travel to Europe once or twice a year. I've always been able to purchase a phone from Verizon, under contract, and, according to Verizon, it's "unlocked". When I get to Europe, I pop a local SIM card in my phone and it's always worked. When I get back in the US, it tries to connect to a GSM network, such as AT&T, until I replace the Verizon SIM.

I've seen references in this forum about "waiting for an unlocked Note 7", rather than purchasing from a carrier.

How is an "unlocked" Note 7 purchased from Samsung different than the "unlocked" Note 7 I purchase from Verizon. Isn't the meaning of unlocked the ability to pop any SIM into the phone and have it work (assuming the phone supports it)?

 

[luis_banda]

Not sure if the Verizon device it's truly unlocked. But the benefits of buying a factory unlocked device is that the software is not modified by Verizon so any update doesn't depend of the carrier (for example when Samsung would release Android 7.0 it would arrive faster to non carrier devices).

 

[bertsirkin]

Not sure if the Verizon device it's truly unlocked. But the benefits of buying a factory unlocked device is that the software is not modified by Verizon so any update doesn't depend of the carrier (for example when Samsung would release Android 7.0 it would arrive faster to non carrier devices).

I can see the advantage of no carrier software, but I think you hit on the crux of my question when you said: "Not sure if the Verizon device it's truly unlocked.".

Is there more than one kind of "unlocking"??

 

[luis_banda]

Sorry if I couldn't answer your main question. I actually live outsite US. When I said if it's truly unlocked is for example that european unlocked Samsung phones have some kind of regional restriction: Your 'unlocked' Euro Galaxy S7 is still region-locked — but that's not a huge deal | Android Central that could be bypass with some requeriments.

If Verizon said it's unlocked, there shouldn't be any problem if you just put any GSM sim.

Greets

 

[dpham00]

I can see the advantage of no carrier software, but I think you hit on the crux of my question when you said: "Not sure if the Verizon device it's truly unlocked.".

Is there more than one kind of "unlocking"??

There is a sim unlock,for verizon,phones are generally factory sim unlocked unless it is prepaid or not lte or very old. But that only means that it can accept a sim from another carrier,doesn't guarantee any compatibility or no added software.

If you have a carrier phone from another carrier then it can also be unlocked using a code or in some cases like tmobile or metropcs,an unlock app . again,this doesn't guarantee compatibility either,only that it can be used on another carrier

The s7 carrier free model has been slower in getting security patches than the Verizon model.

The other unlock is a bootloader unlock, which is used many times when rooting

 

[bertsirkin]

Sorry if I couldn't answer your main question. I actually live outsite US. When I said if it's truly unlocked is for example that european unlocked Samsung phones have some kind of regional restriction: Your 'unlocked' Euro Galaxy S7 is still region-locked — but that's not a huge deal | Android Central that could be bypass with some requeriments.

If Verizon said it's unlocked, there shouldn't be any problem if you just put any GSM sim.

Greets

Interesting - so, there appears to be 2 kinds of "locking" for non-rooted phones - regional and carrier. European and Latin America phones are regionally locked (and maybe also network locked), so you can't buy a phone in one country and immediately bring it back to another country to use it. With smaller nearby borders, I can see why they do that in Europe and Latin America, but not in the US.

Network locking is where a carrier locks a phone so it won't accept a different carriers SIM card.

So, in the US, any phone that is "unlocked" is able to accept a different SIM card, assuming the phone has the capabilities of the new network.

So, theoretically, I should be able to take an unlocked Verizon Note 7 and put it on a US GSM network (AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.).

 

[Ambivalencetech]

The additional thing is while basically any other SIM would work on the Verizon phone, OTA OS updates are only if you have a Verizon SIM in the phone. There are other ways you may be able to get this though.

 

[bertsirkin]

The additional thing is while basically any other SIM would work on the Verizon phone, OTA OS updates are only if you have a Verizon SIM in the phone. There are other ways you may be able to get this though.

Is there no way to change the ROM to a non-Verizon ROM - basically the Samsung unlocked phone?

 

[dpham00]

Is there no way to change the ROM to a non-Verizon ROM - basically the Samsung unlocked phone?

On the s7 edge,yes . not sure if it is available on the note 7 though.