Samsung S20 TMobile version or UNLOCKED version? Pros and Cons...

[Dualmonitors]

Hi All:

i am ordering the S20 Ultra 512gb from Samsung.com this Thursday night.

as the prices for the abovementioned phone is exactly the same for the TMobile version (ordered on Samsung.com) or the UNLOCKED version, i am wondering why we won't all choose the UNLOCKED version?

what might the pros and cons be please?

thank you.

 

[mustang7757]

Re: Ordering from Samsung.com: TMobile version or UNLOCKED version? Pros and Cons...

I'm going edit your title first , since there's a Samsung.com to s20 tmobile vs unlocked

 

[mustang7757]

Only difference will be little bit less bloat , its unlocked to use on any carrier already, and no tmobile boot up screen .

 

[tube517]

Does wifi calling work on the unlocked version?

 

[mustang7757]

Depends on the carrier, tmobile, Verizon yes and att no

 

[Dualmonitors]

my goodness, you really know everything! amazing. do you work in the industry or for one of the companies? (no need to disclose which company!) thank you kindly for being so incredibly helpful.

i recall ~3 years ago, when i had a really obscure issue, when a poorly written Onkyo AVR app has a menu that was HIDDEN(!), due to it not having the usual 3 dashes at the upper right corner to open up the menu for that app, you were so helpful to tell me that there is this really obscure area when you can click and get the menu option forced to display (or something like that), and it worked! thank you!

ok, back to this...

since i'm dense, i'm going to ask about some details please, if you don't mind:

- "less bloatware": i assume you mean the unlocked version will have less bloatware? well, that's a universal cheer, so no question there - UNLOCKED version WINS.

- "does wifi calling work": TMobile = yes it works, so for TMobile users, again, the UNLOCKED version WINS again.

- "no TMobile boot up screen": i can't imagine that anyone would care! so once again, the UNLOCKED version WINS.

- may i ask if there are any other TMobile benefits that one might lose by going for the UNLOCKED version please? it seems like it's all pros and no cons whatsoever! if that were the case, why would anyone ever buy the TMobile version on Samsung.com rather than the UNLOCKED version? just wondering, can't figure it out.

- For educational and discussion purposes, IF one were to buy the TMobile version, would there be some point in time when one would be able to UNLOCK the TMobile version bought from Samsung.com please? i ask because i get my TMobile phones unlocked each and every year, roughly 3-6 months into getting the new phone. at that point in time, TMobile allows you to call in and have it unlocked, or even go onto T-mobile.com and just click the unlock phone buttone and voila, you have an unlocked phone with the Tmobile boot up screen and all. So, i'm wondering, IF one were to buy the TMobile version directly from Samsung.com, would one ever be able to UNLOCK it?

thank you so much, @mustang7757.

 

[Dualmonitors]

PS: more and more, it just sounds shocking to me that there is zero reason to buy or JOD this S20 Ultra 512gb from TMobile this time around!

i see NO benefits whatsoever buying or JOD'ing from TMobile, especially since the JOD pricing is a whopping $850 down, plus a monthly payment.

with Samsung.com, one may get an ALREADY UNLOCKED phone with seemingly no downsides at all, right out of the gate!

plus, we get $600 trade in credit for our S10+, and so we pay a total of $1,000 cash for the S20 Ultra 512gb when purchased directly from Samsung.com doing the trade in. furthermore, we get a $200 accessories coupon. from what i can tell, the new "+" version of the wireless samsung headphones are $150, and the new 45-watt best available is around $45, so that would use up the entire $200 accessories coupon, though frankly, the new "+" wireless headphones and the new 45-watt fast charger are honestly "must have" accessories. who in the world would buy the S20 Ultra and not want the advantages offered by those two accessories?

all in all, i see samsung.com being the only obvious "preferred" buying venue for most of us.

 

[mustang7757]

my goodness, you really know everything! amazing. do you work in the industry or for one of the companies? (no need to disclose which company!) thank you kindly for being so incredibly helpful.

i recall ~3 years ago, when i had a really obscure issue, when a poorly written Onkyo AVR app has a menu that was HIDDEN(!), due to it not having the usual 3 dashes at the upper right corner to open up the menu for that app, you were so helpful to tell me that there is this really obscure area when you can click and get the menu option forced to display (or something like that), and it worked! thank you!

ok, back to this...

since i'm dense, i'm going to ask about some details please, if you don't mind:

- "less bloatware": i assume you mean the unlocked version will have less bloatware? well, that's a universal cheer, so no question there - UNLOCKED version WINS.

- "does wifi calling work": TMobile = yes it works, so for TMobile users, again, the UNLOCKED version WINS again.

- "no TMobile boot up screen": i can't imagine that anyone would care! so once again, the UNLOCKED version WINS.

- may i ask if there are any other TMobile benefits that one might lose by going for the UNLOCKED version please? it seems like it's all pros and no cons whatsoever! if that were the case, why would anyone ever buy the TMobile version on Samsung.com rather than the UNLOCKED version? just wondering, can't figure it out.

- For educational and discussion purposes, IF one were to buy the TMobile version, would there be some point in time when one would be able to UNLOCK the TMobile version bought from Samsung.com please? i ask because i get my TMobile phones unlocked each and every year, roughly 3-6 months into getting the new phone. at that point in time, TMobile allows you to call in and have it unlocked, or even go onto T-mobile.com and just click the unlock phone buttone and voila, you have an unlocked phone with the Tmobile boot up screen and all. So, i'm wondering, IF one were to buy the TMobile version directly from Samsung.com, would one ever be able to UNLOCK it?

thank you so much, @mustang7757.

Lol...no I don't know everything , I wish
I do know Samsung phones pretty well .
Yes you can definitely get TMobile device from Samsung unlocked like you mentioned call TMobile . I'm glad helped you with your other issue my pleasure. Thank you for kind words and your welcome!

 

[mustang7757]

PS: more and more, it just sounds shocking to me that there is zero reason to buy or JOD this S20 Ultra 512gb from TMobile this time around!

i see NO benefits whatsoever buying or JOD'ing from TMobile, especially since the JOD pricing is a whopping $850 down, plus a monthly payment.

with Samsung.com, one may get an ALREADY UNLOCKED phone with seemingly no downsides at all, right out of the gate!

plus, we get $600 trade in credit for our S10+, and so we pay a total of $1,000 cash for the S20 Ultra 512gb when purchased directly from Samsung.com doing the trade in. furthermore, we get a $200 accessories coupon. from what i can tell, the new "+" version of the wireless samsung headphones are $150, and the new 45-watt best available is around $45, so that would use up the entire $200 accessories coupon, though frankly, the new "+" wireless headphones and the new 45-watt fast charger are honestly "must have" accessories. who in the world would buy the S20 Ultra and not want the advantages offered by those two accessories?

all in all, i see samsung.com being the only obvious "preferred" buying venue for most of us.

I agree there!

 

[Dualmonitors]

Lol...no I don't know everything , I wish
I do know Samsung phones pretty well .
Yes you can definitely get TMobile device from Samsung unlocked like you mentioned call TMobile . I'm glad helped you with your other issue my pleasure. Thank you for kind words and your welcome!

@mustang7757:

that is a surprise to me -- that one can call TMobile to get a device that we bought FROM Samsung.com and get it unlocked!!

it seems very strange. why would TMobile have the ability or even interest to UNLOCK a phone that we bought from Samsung.com?

you see why i am bewildered by this?

well, net/net, this might not matter at all to someone like me. Reason: you already said clearly that there are NO DOWNSIDES to someone who's a TMobile customer to buy an UNLOCKED phone from Samsung.com. So, it would seem to me that EVERY Tmobile customer would be doing themselves a service by buying an UNLOCKED phone from Samsung.com! getting the Tmobile version through samsung.com would be needlessly troublesome without any upsides, only the downside of having to, at some point, getting it unlocked when you travel overseas and plan to use a SIM card from a different provider!

 

[msm0511]

Getting from TMo is easier for a lot of customers b/c they can just go into a store, get the phone, and have the price broken down monthly on their bill. It's easier than paying Samsung separately. There's also Samsung customer service which is terrible whereas TMo has good customer service in general. Heck most people don't even know the difference between an unlocked phone and a carrier model b/c they've never had an unlocked phone. I think for many too, they'd rather buy a phone from a place with locations in their area in case something goes wrong.

At one point in time Samsung didn't pay much attention to their unlocked models for updates, but they've turned that around over the last few years. TMo updates and Samsung unlocked arrive pretty close to one another these days.

All around though I definitely prefer unlocked. It's bad enough that Samsung puts FB on out of the box. I don't need any carrier stuff added that I don't care about.

 

[mustang7757]

@mustang7757:

that is a surprise to me -- that one can call TMobile to get a device that we bought FROM Samsung.com and get it unlocked!!

it seems very strange. why would TMobile have the ability or even interest to UNLOCK a phone that we bought from Samsung.com?

you see why i am bewildered by this?

well, net/net, this might not matter at all to someone like me. Reason: you already said clearly that there are NO DOWNSIDES to someone who's a TMobile customer to buy an UNLOCKED phone from Samsung.com. So, it would seem to me that EVERY Tmobile customer would be doing themselves a service by buying an UNLOCKED phone from Samsung.com! getting the Tmobile version through samsung.com would be needlessly troublesome without any upsides, only the downside of having to, at some point, getting it unlocked when you travel overseas and plan to use a SIM card from a different provider!

That's because at Samsung.com they sell carrier version and the unlocked version , so if you want to unlock a carrier version you would have to call in to your carrier to get unlocked which is kinda crazy if you think about it when you just paid for it up front but that's their rules or they give you option buy it's unlocked version and don't have to go through that .

 

[buzzy3970]

With the exclusion of iPhones T-mobile devices are unlocked by an app. No need to call care. It's pretty seamless it the requirements are met.

That's because at Samsung.com they sell carrier version and the unlocked version , so if you want to unlock a carrier version you would have to call in to your carrier to get unlocked which is kinda crazy if you think about it when you just paid for it up front but that's their rules or they give you option buy it's unlocked version and don't have to go through that .

 

[hasasimo]

I noticed that the unlocked ones only have HD voice, not HD+ voice over T-Mobile. I actually prefer HD voice anyway, so that shouldn't be a flaw for you. It also didn't let you do video calling straight from the dialer, but that shouldn't matter now that the default video dialer will be Duo.

 

[Dualmonitors]

What's the difference please? Thank you.

 

[mustang7757]

With the exclusion of iPhones T-mobile devices are unlocked by an app. No need to call care. It's pretty seamless it the requirements are met.

You have to call care to have them put the imei in unlocked process then can unlock through the app . Usually 24h to 48h to complete

 

[hasasimo]

What's the difference please? Thank you.

HD+ voice is slightly clearer, but I also noticed that microphones are a lot more sensitive in this mode, so any background sounds seem to muffle the other person's sound more easily, especially on speakerphone. Regular HD voice is not as susceptible to this. I use speakerphone almost exclusively, so I've picked up on these things between the unlocked models and the T-Mobile ones. The S9 in particular was the absolute worst with HD+ voice on T-Mobile. Plenty of people online had issues. It might not have been every S9, but there were at least several bad batches.

 

[DanielLoreti]

I noticed that the unlocked ones only have HD voice, not HD+ voice over T-Mobile. I actually prefer HD voice anyway, so that shouldn't be a flaw for you. It also didn't let you do video calling straight from the dialer, but that shouldn't matter now that the default video dialer will be Duo.

What default video dialer do they use now?

 

[hasasimo]

What default video dialer do they use now?

The S20 lineup will be the first Samsung flagships to use Google Duo as their default video dialer. This is good news, as it'll make video calling straight from the dialer compatible with more phones. Before it was just Galaxy to Galaxy. It was great quality, for the most part, but so is Duo.

The OnePlus lineup of 2019 were the first Android flagships I'm aware of that used Google Duo for video calling straight from the default dialer.

 

[mustang7757]

I also hear the s20 will get RCS messages teamed up with Microsoft first for that


https://www.windowscentral.com/rcs-messaging-coming-your-phone-only-select-samsung-phones-right-now