OK techies, unlocked / jail broke phones ? ? ?

[Great-Kazoo]

What the hell is the difference, if any? Does a jail broke / unlocked cell have the capability to work with any carrier or just who it's jail broke for? My phone shit the bed and for use of i cannot see paying out the anal cavity $2-400, when a lot of "Used" phones are on CL.

[Lurch]

Who is your carrier? I'm getting ready to switch and will have a Verizon phone to sell.

[kwando]

Jailbreak only plies to apple. Same as rooting for android. That opens up the phone to the main file system. Has nothing to do with carrier.

Unlock allows you to use the phone on another carrier, if they are on the same band. sprint/Verizon are CDMA, tmobile/AT&T are GSM. There MIGHT be some,tweaking involved to get all the features working properly (visual VM, MMS,etc). Try to get a phone on the same carrier if possible.

[Rabid]

Watch out for used Sprint phones, if they are reported stolen they can never be used again with Sprint. If you do have Sprint the best thing to do is to make the deal at a sprint store and have them check to see if it is stolen before you hand over the cash.

[brutal]

Carrier and contract status?

Sprint has the GS4 for $99 on contract. Love mine and it blows away the Moto I had that shit sideways twice.

[Circuits]

Unlocked means the phone can be used with any compatible carrier - it is not "locked" to one service provider.

Most contract plan phones will only work with the carrier you got them from. Some carriers will unlock the phone when you have completed your contract, or if you pay a fee to accelerate the end of the contract. You can also buy many phones unlocked, or get hackers of some sort to unlock them for you.

An unlocked iPhone5 direct from Apple is like $649 for the basic model, versus $99 when you sign a new 2-yr service contract.

As has already been explained, jailbroken is Apple-specific and means the phone will run apps not approved by Apple and bought directly from the Apple online store. Rooting on the Android phones means about the same thing - though is not as big a deal, since the android marketplace is a lot looser on what they will and won't allow to be sold.

[blacklabel]

For the least amount of pain, pick up a used phone made for your carrier.

[Great-Kazoo]

Who is your carrier? I'm getting ready to switch and will have a Verizon phone to sell.

Verizon

Carrier and contract status?

Sprint has the GS4 for $99 on contract. Love mine and it blows away the Moto I had that shit sideways twice.

Contract, we don't need no steenken contract. PREPAID. Was contract with V for 12 years, did M-M for 1 yr then went prepaid. NO UNIVERSAL CHARGES, TAXES, ETC.

[OtterbatHellcat]

I heard that apple accessory owners that jailbreak their shit...completely void the warranty of the device.. they know if you did that or not.

[Circuits]

Verizon

Unless you gonna VOIP it straight up, you still need a carrier, a plan and a SIM. Verizon system compat gives you CDMA options, but only multimode phones will carry over to GSM-based SIM like ATT/T-Mobile/Europe.

If you're happy with verizon, buy a multimode unlocked or CDMA unlocked, or verizon phone. Bitch is usually the data plan to fully utilize the phone on carrier. You can use a jailbroken iPhone on ATT/T-Mobile network no problem, but unless they authorize you a data plan, it's a phone, and your data needs are served only off wifi. I used to use a jailbroken/unlocked iPhone 3Gs on T-Mobile pay-as-you go for my primary phone, but they only supported day-by-day Gen2 (EDGE/GPRS) data service to it, for an extra charge, and turned that option off over a year ago on me.

Data is the achilles heel of a smartphone to a carrier, unless you have ubiquitous wifi throughout your service area(s).