OK techies, unlocked / jail broke phones ? ? ?

[Jer]

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.

You misspelled Jitterbug.



Jitterbug!

[Great-Kazoo]

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).

Don't use or need a data plan. GPS, i read a map, e-m- tablet or pc, text, vm and the tried and true (ring, ring) Hello. phone call. Which seems to be going the way of writing a letter.
I hate texting.
Especially when i receive AT WORK unable to talk now, will call you after work. unless i end up working overtime. if that happens i'll call after 9 tonight.. After all that you could have just answered the phone and asked to call later, OR go to VM

[waxthis]

Don't use or need a data plan. GPS, i read a map, e-m- tablet or pc, text, vm and the tried and true (ring, ring) Hello. phone call. Which seems to be going the way of writing a letter.
I hate texting.
Especially when i receive AT WORK unable to talk now, will call you after work. unless i end up working overtime. if that happens i'll call after 9 tonight.. After all that you could have just answered the phone and asked to call later, OR go to VM

^^^^^LMMFAO

[BigNick73]

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.

This is the same for Verizon. If you can get the "esn" from the seller you can call Verizon and check to see if it's good or not, I'm thinking there's a web page you can also do this but cant find it atm. I usually buy mine on ebay and pay with paypal so there's some recourse if it comes up bad. Only happened once to me and the seller exchanged it no problem.

[Jamnanc]

Verizon requires a call to make sure that phone doesn't have a bad es#? If the old user didn't pay their bill, you won't be able to activate it. What carrier do you have Jim? I might be able to find something.

[brutal]

Don't use or need a data plan. GPS, i read a map, e-m- tablet or pc, text, vm and the tried and true (ring, ring) Hello. phone call. Which seems to be going the way of writing a letter. I hate texting. Especially when i receive AT WORK unable to talk now, will call you after work. unless i end up working overtime. if that happens i'll call after 9 tonight.. After all that you could have just answered the phone and asked to call later, OR go to VM

Sorry, I have that one programmed into my quick text for responding to rejected calls.

The one thing I miss about my Moto is the smart actions. Rules based actions like auto text replies and such. Still haven't looked at the alternative I installed.

[Circuits]

Jim, we are going to prepaid next month too. we have had verizon contracts for 10 years. My wife and I use between 100-300 minutes a month combined and no texting AT ALL. No use for a smart phone or anything like that.
I thought a lot of the packages for prepaid came with a phone or were in the $30-60 range? Now, which prepaid company to use?

For pre-paid, I use T-Mobile. $100 card is 1000 minutes and they're good for a year, and roll over when you buy another card. So my home phone is one of my old iPhones and I pay about $100/yr for it.

[Great-Kazoo]

that sounds great. thanks for the information.

Verizon is Unlimited Talk and text. I have their "phone in a box" $21 and the $50 per pay plan. NEVER had any hidden or surprise charges. Unfortunately the $20 unit is currently held together with duct tape and baling wire.

[ZERO THEORY]

A rooted Android allows you to delete bloatware, unlock the WiFi permissions so you can use your phone as a hotspot for free, use your own backup programs, run custom ROMs, alter permissions for apps, etc.

A jail-broken iPhone is still an iPhone; useless.

EDIT:
Oh, you just mean a service unlock. Right, go for it.

[hurley842002]

unlock the WiFi permissions so you can use your phone as a hotspot for free[B].

This is what I need, so I can take advantage of my unlimited data and hotspot. As it is now, I'd have to ditch my grandfathered unlimited Verizon data in order to use the hotspot feature.