[tlug] Re: Unlocked Android phone

[John Fremlin <john@example.com>]

"Ian Wells" <ijw@example.com> writes:
> 2008/12/9 Godwin Stewart <gstewart@example.com>:
>> On 09/12/08 10:44, Shawn wrote:
>>
>>> Also, I know little of unlocked phones.  If I went on vacation to Guam,
>>> could I possible just get a card with minutes there to flip in.  I'll
>>> have to look into but thought someone might know.
>>
>> The point about this phone is more that it is *unbranded* rather than unlocked.
>
> It might be why they're selling it...
>
> This is afaik the first unlocked Android phone on the market, and
> locking a phone reduces much of its worth (to me, at least, with my
> collection of SIM cards of various nationalities).
>
> The fact that it's unbranded means that you can reflash it, which is
> really its primary selling point, and certainly adds value, but is
> comparatively incidental to me.

It is still not permitted to flash most unbranded phones except with
their manufacturer approved software.

Of course there are generally ways round this, but they tend to work on
locked, unlocked, branded, unbranded phones equally.

The difference with the G1 developer edition is that it is not only
unbranded but explicitly allows you to flash unsigned firmware.

You can easily use a 3G phone (provided it supports the right band) with
a Softbank prepaid SIM (free if you buy a top-up). You will need to
spoof the user-agent to send and receive MMS (email) though, and even
unbranded Nokia phones make this quite annoying (you will probably need
to hack the phone or, as I did, get a free developer cert for you
device).

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