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Friday December 8, 2006
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 Updated. We've started a crusade towards "freeing your phone" this week, with an in-depth package on PCMag.com about unlocking cell phones and an episode of Gearlog Radio where I talk about the advantages of not getting bleeped up the bleep by Verizon Wireless.
Relatively few people in the US buy pre-unlocked phones, but to see what they're buying, I turned to the shopping experts at PriceGrabber.com. The list of best-sellers most-researched phones they sent me really surprised me - you'll find it after the jump.
Looking at the table below, I'm surprised by several things: most notably, the presence of the Motorola A1200, also known as the "Ming." This is a Chinese smartphone, never sold legitimately in the US. I've seen one, and I couldn't use it because the interface was all in Chinese. I've heard you can switch the language, but I couldn't, because I couldn't read the Chinese menu options to switch it.
The LG KG800 is the GSM version of Verizon Wireless's "Chocolate" phone, also not officially available here because Verizon has an exclusivity agreement. The middle of the list is more comprehensible - our Editor's Choice smartphone, the Nokia N80, Sony Ericsson's terrific W810i music phone, and the GSM version of Motorola's new KRZR flip.
According to PriceGrabber, this shows that consumers are willing to spend a lot to get a great cell phone. Still, I have to be a little skeptical of any list where the #2 phone defaults to showing everything entirely in Chinese. Update: PriceGrabber says the retailers have told them that they pre-set the Mings to work in English. Whew.
- Motorola Razr V3 Cell Phone - Black
- Motorola A1200 Cell Phone
- LG Electronics KG800 Chocolate Cell Phone
- Nokia N80 Cell Phone
- Sony Ericsson W810I Cell Phone
- Samsung D900 Cell Phone
- Motorola MOTOKRZR K1 Cell Phone
- Motorola Razr V3 Cell Phone - Dark Blue
- Palm Treo 650 smartphone - Cingular
- Sony Ericsson P990i PDA Phone
- Motorola Razr V3 Cell Phone - Pink
- Motorola V3X Cell Phone
- Nokia N93 Cell Phone
- Motorola Razr V3 Cell Phone - Silver
- Motorola SLVR L7 Cell Phone
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December 12, 2006 3:20 PM
Fine,
But what can you do with an unlocked phome.
Verizon limits blue tooth so the phone cannot be used
as a modem using blue tooth. If I bought an unlocked phone, could I use it on the Verizon Network.
December 12, 2006 9:00 PM
Unfortunately, Verizon prohibits unlocked phones from being used on their network. Because they use the CDMA technology, they can do that and the copyright office ruling doesn't affect them. For more details, see here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2069847,00.asp
And for what you can do about it, see here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2068639,00.asp