Unlocked phones

gray2018

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Apr 1, 2018
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Hello all. I recently purchased an unlocked, certified preowned Galaxy Note 9 from Samsung.com for a pretty reasonable price. That being said, I am not too familiar with unlocked phones. I have used one once for a short time. Awhile back, I had picked up a used, unlocked Galaxy S10e from Amazon. I have T-Mobile and the service was kind of so so. Now my wife had the T-Mobile S10e and she actually got more bars and better service it seemed even though we both had LTE.

I haven't received the Note 9 yet, but this is one of my concerns that my service won't be as good as it should be. I had the carrier Note 9 awhile back and my service was easily better than all devices I have had recently. I made a stupid mistake and traded it in and obviously couldn't get it back, so this is why I opted to buy a cheaper used one.

I have heard though that getting an unlocked device is a lot of the time better than carrier. How about updates? How does this work with an unlocked device? I was getting pretty regular updates when I had my Note, even if they were just security patches.
 

Rukbat

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If it's the SM-960U, it has the same bands as the SM-970U (USA S10e), so they should be comparable. If it's the SM-960F (the Note 9 Global version), it's missing bands 14, 29, 30 and 46, but I don't think TMobile uses any of them, so it should still work the same as the S10e.
 

gray2018

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If it's the SM-960U, it has the same bands as the SM-970U (USA S10e), so they should be comparable. If it's the SM-960F (the Note 9 Global version), it's missing bands 14, 29, 30 and 46, but I don't think TMobile uses any of them, so it should still work the same as the S10e.

Yeah it says it is the sm5n960uzkaxaa
 

mustang7757

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Why is that exactly?
I'm not 100% sure I think you get more the carrier ageration but like I mentioned nothing to worry about , I went between both the unlock and carrier firmware flashing through odin on my Note 9
 

gray2018

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How does it generally work for carrier updates? Will I still get them if available? Will the device be up to date? And also, I would assume I don't have to worry about annoying carrier bloatware?
 

mustang7757

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How does it generally work for carrier updates? Will I still get them if available? Will the device be up to date? And also, I would assume I don't have to worry about annoying carrier bloatware?
All carrier on unlocked firmware will get the same build number , the unlocked firmware usually gets security updates faster then carrier version , but major OS updates carrier get first then unlocked.
No carrier bloat or start up screen.
 

gray2018

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Awesome. I don't believe the Note 9 is bound to get anymore major OS updates, so that's not an issue. As long as I get some security patches I am all good. Awhile back, with my carrier Note 9, from the merging of Sprint and T-Mobile, after an update I got this stupid app called Carrier hub which couldn't be removed and was a major battery drain. I am wondering if something like this will be an issue again due to not having a carrier locked phone.
 

mustang7757

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Awesome. I don't believe the Note 9 is bound to get anymore major OS updates, so that's not an issue. As long as I get some security patches I am all good. Awhile back, with my carrier Note 9, from the merging of Sprint and T-Mobile, after an update I got this stupid app called Carrier hub which couldn't be removed and was a major battery drain. I am wondering if something like this will be an issue again due to not having a carrier locked phone.
Carrier hub I believe was sprint thing , on unlocked version shouldn't have it , security updates will be at least another year
 

gray2018

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It is. But since the merger, many T-Mobile users have reported after a certain update randomly having this app installed on their device that no matter what they tried, couldn't remove it. Me being one of them. Even after uninstalling it, it would appear again.
 

mustang7757

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It is. But since the merger, many T-Mobile users have reported after a certain update randomly having this app installed on their device that no matter what they tried, couldn't remove it. Me being one of them. Even after uninstalling it, it would appear again.
Thats on a carrier version not the unlocked?
This app can remove it no matter what
https://www.packagedisabler.com/
 

gray2018

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Ah I see. I wasn't sure if there was a difference between the carrier and unlocked for that sort of thing. So in other words, T-Mobile cannot push any apps to my device due to it being unlocked and not theirs?
 

mustang7757

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Ah I see. I wasn't sure if there was a difference between the carrier and unlocked for that sort of thing. So in other words, T-Mobile cannot push any apps to my device due to it being unlocked and not theirs?
No carrier apps on unlocked version
 

ptkelly

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Sep 28, 2013
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No carrier apps on unlocked version

I usually buy unlocked phones through Amazon since I live in Mexico and then I get a Telmex SIM card. I get one App that seems to come with the SIM card. On my Sony phone it is "SIM Telcel" in the App Drawer and SIM Toolkit in the App category for Settings. It seems to be for ads to Telcel services and news/sports items but if I click anything it says I should connect to Telcel and I never have.

When I first got the phone and did a setup it got a number of security and system updates that came, as far as I can tell, directly from Sony. When I had Pixels and Telcel service all my updates were from Google.
 

mustang7757

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I usually buy unlocked phones through Amazon since I live in Mexico and then I get a Telmex SIM card. I get one App that seems to come with the SIM card. On my Sony phone it is "SIM Telcel" in the App Drawer and SIM Toolkit in the App category for Settings. It seems to be for ads to Telcel services and news/sports items but if I click anything it says I should connect to Telcel and I never have.

When I first got the phone and did a setup it got a number of security and system updates that came, as far as I can tell, directly from Sony. When I had Pixels and Telcel service all my updates were from Google.
No carrier apps on my Tmobile or AT&T sim , is it sim unlocked or unlocked version?
 

ptkelly

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No carrier apps on my Tmobile or AT&T sim , is it sim unlocked or unlocked version?

I have no idea. I didn't know SIMs were locked or unlocked. I get a phone from the U.S. I go to the Telcel Customer Center. i get a SIM, keep my old phone number, and that's it.
 

mustang7757

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I have no idea. I didn't know SIMs were locked or unlocked. I get a phone from the U.S. I go to the Telcel Customer Center. i get a SIM, keep my old phone number, and that's it.
Just check your settings>about phone >should say model number next your phone number
 

ptkelly

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It doesn't know my phone number. It knows my model number but says nothing else and all of that seems to be under Sony's program.
 

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