What is a Factory Unlocked iPhone 3G / 3GS?

06 Sep 2010

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	What is a Factory Unlocked iPhone 3G / 3GS?

Article There seems to be a lot of confusion in the general marketplace about unlocked iPhone 3G / 3G S. This is resulting in:
1) Buyers being scammed.
2) Buyers accusing competitively priced suppliers of being extremely expensive.

This is of course true of all branded electronics, but the unlocked iPhone 3G / 3G S have the added complicated complication of being a three tier system, namely:
- 'Turbo sim' unlocked iPhone
- Software unlocked iPhone
- Factory Unlocked (i.e. never-ever locked) iPhone

1) 'Turbo sim' unlocked iPhone

- A locked iPhone that has been 'unlocked' using a special phone unlocking sim card device, often referred to as a 'turbo sim' (view the SimDevil product on our website to see images).
"http://www.phonedevil.com/shop/simdevil.html"
- These phones are NOT unlocked. Sellers on eBay e.t.c. will happily claim this though in order to make a quick profit (fortunately this is not as widespread as it once was). I do not know how these sellers agree who has custody of the one braincell they share.

Positives:
- Doesn't void warranty (Simply remove the sim and the iPhone is re-locked!).
- Relatively cheap. About £10 including delivery on eBay, and about £5-£6 trade price.

Negatives:
They work pretty well with non-iPhones, but are very poor to use with the iPhone, for these reasons:
i) You cannot sync the iPhone with iTunes unless you remove the sim and put the native network sim in the phone
ii) 3G signal is VERY temperamental and If you are using iPhone firmware 2.2 onwards you can only access 3G on Vodafone UK (I'm not sure about non-UK networks).
iii) From time time the network signal disappears completely (normally when you lose signal for too long, e.g. when using 'plane' mode). In order to get it back you must remove your network sim from the phone, put it in a normal phone and wait for it to pick up signal, and then put it back in your iPhone 3G
iv) These sims also often stop working completely, when the firmware of the phone is updated.

User Experience: AVOID
- You will make NO profit if you sell phones fake unlocked with turbo sims.
- There is however profit to be made selling the sims themselves. Just be prepared for a customer backlash when their phone has signal issues (which happens frequently) and eventually becomes redundant with a new firmware release.

2) Software unlocked iPhone
Positives:
- Free!
- Very quick & easy process.
- All phone features work.

Negatives:
- Voids warranty
- If you upgrade your phone firmware to a new version before they figure out how to update the software to match it, the phone will BRICK (i.e. become permanently unusable). You could be waiting months to upgrade your phone firmware, and many Apps released/updated require the latest firmware version in order to work.

User Experience: A good option if you are price conscious or don't mind the extra hassle (which is potentially a LOT of hassle).

3) Factory Unlocked (i.e. never-locked) iPhone

In certain countries in the world (e.g. Italy, France) it is illegal to sell locked phones. Therefore iPhones sold in these countries are COMPLETELY unlocked and you can use any network sim that you like.

Positives:
- Brand new in their original, sealed boxes! (if they're not, stay away)
- All features work
- Update the phone firmware whenever you like. It will never brick (break) the phone

Negatives:
- Expensive. (but definately worth it, if you have the money to spare!)

- Warranty is not valid in the UK. Apple does this on purpose in order to safeguard the commercial revenue-share contracts it has with its partner network in each country.
If you deal with a seller with DIRECT links to the national retailer(s) (such as PhoneDevil.com), you will be able to send the damaged phone back to them for repairs. This does assume that the seller is decent enough to agree to this (we are!).

User Experience:
- If you have the money, fantastic!
- If you don't, then go for the software unlock version...but if the phone breaks, you're screwed.
- I honestly believe that when you take all factors into account, the factory unlocked version is the way to go. This is the reason why we are only prepared to supply the factory unlocked version to our customers.

I hope this helps!

Callum
PhoneDevil.com

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Created On:

12 Jan 2009 6:19 PM

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