Re: [tlug] [OT] Phones in Japan again

["Nikolay Elenkov" <nick@example.com>]

Scott Robbins writes:

> Is this locking common in Japan?  I ask because my wife is over there, and
> her sister is getting rid of her Galaxy.  I'm wondering, if the phone were
> brought back here, if I could use it with T-mobile if I bought a SIM card.
>

Pretty much all phones by major carriers are locked. There have been some
guidelines from the government (MIC) to promote unlocking/SIM-free phones,
but none of that is mandatory (yet). Docomo will unlock most recent phones
for a fee of 3000 yen, I think it's the same with other carriers. You have
to show up in person in a Docomo shop for this though.

There are probably a dozen 'Samsung Galaxy' phones, but if it was bought
in the last couple of years, it's probably SIII or S4, both of which are
in the list of unlockable Docomo phones:

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/support/procedure/simcard/unlock_dcm/compatible_model/index.html

BTW, you can get a reasonably priced unlocked phone if you buy a
Nexus device directly from Google:

https://play.google.com/store/devices


IIRC, this has come up before, the archives might have some additional info.