Carphone warehouse Locked or unlocked?

scoobydo_2

I'm looking to buy a new pyg mobile I have a t mobile rolling 30 day contract so am just looking for a phone to put the t mobile sim into . Does anyone know if you buy a pay as you go phone from carphone are they locked to a particular network .
I had bought a refurb virgin one as I know t mobile DID work in a virgin phone but my sim wouldn't work .

Any help welcome I'm thinking of the LG KS360

Guys_Dad

Unlocked. (At least mine was)

4app

Hi Scoobydo

I've bought 4 mobiles from Carphone in the last year and all of them have been unlocked. Just asked the guy/gal in store and they should tell you, i've never had any problems with them yet!!

Although you will have to buy a £10 top up as you have to buy the phone with a sim card.

456789

afaik all cpw phones are unlocked - but best to check with them beforehand

4app wrote: »

Although you will have to buy a £10 top up as you have to buy the phone with a sim card.

afaik if you have an orange or 02 sim you can transfer an existing number and existing credit onto the sim they provide - so if you know someone with those networks on payg they could make use of it maybe rather than a new number with £10 on it that you might not use

alduncan

When I asked in Carphone Warehouse, they said that all their phones are unlocked. Which means you can get some good PAYG deals if you buy with Topup for particular networks, but then use whatever network you like (cheapest for me by far is Asda mobile). I did this yesterday, buying a Nokia 2760 for £20 with Virgin mobile topup (£10). My Asda SIM works fine in it, and I'll use up the Virgin airtime (£11 as £1 free!) on some landline phonecalls sometime!

chuckley

ooooh no wonder CPW have so much business.

samwsmith1

Was wondering about this as I want an unlocked phone.

Thanks

TerryC_2

Hello, just bought a cheap SE J1XX £4.84 phone from CPW at the weekend and it's completely unlocked. The salesperson said nearly most if not all phones are unlocked - worth checking it before purchase though.

gjchester

There is no absolute answer, it depends on the stock in the store.

Where the phone is branded by the network and sold as such it will usually be locked, but big phone places buy unlocked stock so they can use it on any network rather than having to stock differnet network variants of the same phone.

It depends what the phone is, if it's on other networks and where the stock came from.

If you want a Google phone then it has to be T-mobile stock as they are the only one doing it, similarly Iphones will be locked to o2 regardless of where you got it from. Both will almost certainly be locked.

If it's something on all the networks theres a greater chance that it will be unlocked, but there isn't a hard and fast rule that all CPW stock is unlocked or not, I've had locked and unlocked phones from them.

You can always ask for an unlocked unbranded phone in the store, online it could go either way.

icebergx

Seeing as E2save, mobiles.co.uk, etc are part of CPW, are payg phones purchased from them unlocked too?
I was specificly looking at the Sony Eriksson W880i and wanted to use an Asda sim.

Thanks.

shinybabe

alduncan wrote: »

When I asked in Carphone Warehouse, they said that all their phones are unlocked. Which means you can get some good PAYG deals if you buy with Topup for particular networks, but then use whatever network you like (cheapest for me by far is Asda mobile). I did this yesterday, buying a Nokia 2760 for £20 with Virgin mobile topup (£10). My Asda SIM works fine in it, and I'll use up the Virgin airtime (£11 as £1 free!) on some landline phonecalls sometime!

Not all their phones are unlocked. I bought one today (Alcatel OT-s319) and it is locked to orange.