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A friendly reminder that isps do NOT care about you or your digital rights. Always best to buy directly from the OEM rather than from the telecommunications (unless you can't afford it). Do proper research before buying a phone!
This is why you never, ever, buy a phone from a carrier
The concept was always bizarre to me. It's like getting a PC as part of your broadband contract. Speaking of, it would make more sense to get a phone as part of your broadband contract, my phone is 95% an internet device. That it happens to have a SIM card in it is a minor feature.
my phone is 95% an internet device. That it happens to have a SIM card in it is a minor feature.
I seriously wonder how long carriers will keep handing out phone numbers to data-only devices. It has to be a serious cost for them to provision out so many numbers plus it only contributes to the phone number exhaustion problem that happens in many areas codes. For example my work has about 1000 training iPads we've shipped out, all with phone numbers local to our main office, purely for the purposes of connecting to mobile data. Any messaging/phone apps the Apple might proload are removed via the MDM so they really never use the phone number for anything. And I imagine the company I work for is not a minority in doing something like that given how cheap iPads are to deploy at scale for anything that just needs to run a web browser and nothing else
That is carrier specific. My carrier will happily sell you a data-only SIM or eSIM, at a discount even.
I'm curious, do they have phone numbers tied to them?
Edit: a quick internet search confirms my suspicion, they do have a number assigned but are unable to make/receive calls or texts
Ok. Now how do I unlock my samsung note 20 ultra that isn't carrier locked?
Also never ever by a Samsung phone. Seriously, you have to check in advance what you can and cannot do with your phone. Stop caring about megapixels, 15 cameras all around the edge of the phone and it being foldable 8 times or more. Then you can also buy phones under $1000. You should try it.
I used to riot every phone I had. I'd install the Cyanogen dailies and loved customizing my phone.
Now I have an $1800 foldable Samsung phone (Fold 3) I bought 3 years ago, and I won't go back. Yeah, it was super expensive, but why should I spend thousands on my desktop computer I use once or twice a week at most, but then go cheap on the device I keep on hand all day every day?
The biggest reasons to root for years were unlocking things like wifi tethering that are now built into the devices. I haven't felt the need to root a phone since like 2012. The things I miss about older phones (headphone jack, IR blaster, SD card slot, interchange batteries, etc) are all hardware that can't be fixed with root, and I wouldn't trade all those features for the user experience of my Fold.
I can use my outside screen for quick tasks, my inner screen for more intense use, and I can wirelessly connect it into my laptop or desktop and get a full desktop-style interface through Samsung Dex (the least-advertised killer feature of Samsung phones, BTW).
It has enough horsepower to run any app I need. The battery life is mediocre if I use the inside screen a bunch, but that's to be expected with this size screen.
I'm happy with my Samsung because they make excellent phones. Do I need all these bells and whistles? No. But I like having them and am in a place where I can buy a nice phone every few years.
And, for the first time I'm entirely, 100% satisfied with my phone 3 years into ownership and am not even considering upgrading any time soon. If I make this phone last 5-6 years it'll average out to being pretty affordable compared to my old phones I'd get for cheap and replace every 2 years.
My wife loves her fold. It went from her not remembering to take her phone places (meaning I couldn’t get ahold of her in emergencies) to her always having it on her. The tablet mode just makes her want to use it
Biggest issue I've had with my s21 is those dumbass childrens games being installed with every update
I used ADB to debloat my galaxy a34 upon receiving the phone, a major OneUI update has not brought anything I disabled, only new apps like the video editor. Hint: Disable / remove Appcloud via ADB if you have a Samsung phone
I got mine used in 2021 and paid $375 for it, buddy. You should try being less full of yourself.
After a couple years of solid pixel use I just ordered an S24 Ultra. I don't care about alot of things but I've had enough terrible signal, WiFi, Bluetooth and battery life.
My wife bought an S23 Ultra and I had my Pixel 7 pro, we're both out and about, she's got full bars 5G, and I've barely got any signal. She can leave her phone anywhere in the house and her bluetooth works up to like 60' away in the right conditions, meanwhile I'm getting half that at most, and there's a 3 second delay over Bluetooth so watching video is fun. She gets like 2 days of charge out of her phone normally, and with minor use I'm below 40% at the end of the day.
Assuming that model can be unlocked you'd usually enable developer options in Android settings, toggle the bootloader unlock option there then reboot to the bootloader and finish unlocking (and wiping) the phone.
There's some Samsung fuckery requiring button presses and/or a cable plugged into the phone at the right time during boot to get into different bootloader modes, the exact buttons and cable plugging sequence vary by model so Google and see if you can find an XDA thread or something.
Oh. I kind of asked ironically. Samsungs phones with Knox have been a huge pita to root and some never really made it at all. If you do get it, then you can't use things like tap to pay or other security focused things.
Especially US carriers. Elsewhere, it varies.
This and bootkits.
Expensive, but worth it.
Usually not even that bad, I buy a 1-2y old unlocked phone on fleabay for <= ~$400 when it's time for an upgrade and I'm set for 3y or so
and I'm set for 3y or so
Whoa, mine hold around 7 years.
I usually move on once it's time for a battery replacement - I can get ~$100-150 back by selling the old phone and I get a newer camera out of the upgrade at the same time.
It works out to be something like $8-10/mo spent in the end (or ~$12/mo if I keep the old phone for some reason) so it's not terribly expensive in the end.
I've used all sorts of other ROM builds, lately I had been into LineageOS. Then I ran a stock Zenfone a while because I got sick of the never-ending treadmill of bootloader unlock>ROM>root>magisk etc etc
After 9 months with a stock phone I got a (used) Pixel and put GrapheneOS on it. From first boot it took all of 10 minutes to unlock the bootloader and install GrapheneOS. The longest part was the download. Bootloader re-locked. Easy peasy.
I'm a convert. I don't prefer the Pixel hardware, tho it's okay, but the ability to easily put my own OS on (and still use my banking apps) is pretty tits. I could revert to stock in 5 minutes.
People have told me not to try graphene because of the devs reputation, do you think it matters really?
The dev apparently has the attitude of a cocky 14 year old when any of their decisions are criticized. Whether that's reason not to use the project is completely up to you.
Thank you, well as long as the OS is secure then that doesn't matter to me in the end
ISP locking doesn't make any sense, why should they care if I use stock Android or GraphineOS?
Because the core reason is about control. They don't want users to have the option or freedom to install an OS of their choice because it could hurt their "precious" revenue
A lot of carrier phones come with carrier preinstalled apps. And it allows for sim locking, keeping you trapped with them or other carriers on the same network. Or at least that’s how it has been, back in the day, when sim-locking still was legal in the EU. Now, phones are the same, whether they come from your carrier or retail.
You don't think they care that you're attempting to circumvent their data collection on you?
Their stated reason is to mitigate theft by preventing removal of software that binds the device to the network and account, and to protect their network by blocking paths to custom roms including potentially custom radio firmware.
The real reason is likely a blend of protecting leased devices for resale value, keeping people from removing "sponsored" apps or ones that make them money, and distrust of users ability to not get tricked into abject stupid choices.
Buy a phone not tied to a carrier
Easy if you have money. If a new phone is a financial stretch, then in the short term it can be cheaper to get a nice phone for "free" with carrier lock in (which of course means it wasn't free at all). It probably ends up being more expensive in the long term, but your paycheck can cover it.
You can actually get financing directly from Google who make the Pixel line of phones themselves, with bootloader unlocked as an option. So there is absolutely zero reason to buy from a carrier like Verizon unless they have a really fantastic promotion happening.
first world countries have carrier locking illegal, and carriers sell the same configuration phones as regular shops.
Welcome to capitalism...
For a long time VZW used separate tech. That required a different antenna/software. Hence special phones.
And still has some frequency bands not offered on international phones. But it is mostly about control.
Carriers still sell phones?
If you want to be on Verizon, check out Visible. Same network, but way cheaper. Bring your own device or use one of their cheap options.
While this is true, be aware there are drawbacks to 3rd party budget carriers.
The service includes caveats that your traffic lower priority then VZWs so if your on a busy node you may get throttled or temporarily kicked off
I've been using a VMNO for 4 years now, never had an issue.
I used to be Verizon only because of travel for work, and I need it to "just work". I've found NVMO to be no different now.
It's possible in a specific area this could be the case though. Not all areas have the same coverage.
I was also on Verizon forever since I could always smugly claim more bars than my poor friends
now that I'm kicked off my family plan and I actually have to pay for it and daycare and a mortgage I switched to mint and it works better than my wife's Verizon
Truly so frustrating
You don't even need to get a phone from ISP or some telecom, on Xiaomi you need to install sussy app on PC and wait for a week, for unlocking bootloader.
Unless you are Chinese user, which means you are double fucked.
To unlock your phone, you need to:
But hey, if you bought the phone outside of China (or simply not Chinese version), then you don't have to do any of those except wait for 68 hours. Fuck the Chinese users eh (Chinese version also has a lot more bloatwares, the apps that you download from xiaomi app store also more invasive (more permission) than google play versions).
What the fuck that's like a whole NPC quest line.