ROW S9+ in the US?

[Donkey Hodie]

I’m headed to Australia in a few days and have the opportunity to pick up an S9+ while there. I’m on VZW in the states and am wondering whether the S9+ will work. I’ve read recently that Samsung is region locking their boot loader so does this mean I won’t get updates?

Thanks for any info.

 

[hasasimo]

I’m headed to Australia in a few days and have the opportunity to pick up an S9+ while there. I’m on VZW in the states and am wondering whether the S9+ will work. I’ve read recently that Samsung is region locking their boot loader so does this mean I won’t get updates?

Thanks for any info.

I don't know much about Australian phone variants, but if the version there is anything like most of the international variants, there won't be any CDMA radios in the phone. That would mean it won't work with Sprint or Verizon.

You'd have to be sure of the model number and look up the radio band specs.

 

[chanchan05]

International models won't run on Sprint on Verizon. The rest of the world uses GSM, like TMobile.

Although if nothing else, the SoC benchmarks for the Exynos chip used in international models is 2x faster than the SnapDragon chip in the US models of the S9.

 

[anon(5630457)]

Verizon doesn't use its CDMA frequencies anymore and they'll be shut down for good on December 31, 2019. They're leftover from the 3G and 2G technologies. Verizon is all LTE at this point. Make sure the Australian variant uses the same signals as Verizon before you buy it. I wouldn't recommend buying an Australian device to use in the US.

 

[Tim1954]

I agree with above posters.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

To be on the safe side, get the US VZW model.

International models may not properly work with US LTE bands