If you unlock a phone can you use all the features of that phone?

Emmbee1970

Hi,

I have a payg O2 mobile and I don't like my Sony Ericsson handset any more. Was going to buy a Motorola unlocked phone and put my O2 sim card in but will I be able to use all of the features of the new phone? Surely that would depend on which network it was originally set up for? Or have I not got the hang of this unlocking lark?

Thanks,

emmbee1970

lawbunny

Hey,

An unlocked phone should work, providing you call up O2 and get all the settings and stuff for your new phone. However, as all networks will advise you, they cannot guarantee full compatibility of all phone features with their sim card. To be honest, it tends to be mms/gprs which in incompatible, if anything.

Sid_Harper

Emmbee1970 wrote: »

Hi,

I have a payg O2 mobile and I don't like my Sony Ericsson handset any more. Was going to buy a Motorola unlocked phone and put my O2 sim card in but will I be able to use all of the features of the new phone? Surely that would depend on which network it was originally set up for? Or have I not got the hang of this unlocking lark?

Thanks,

emmbee1970

Just a more general response.

For general info: Unlocking and debranding are two different things.

Debranding removes all the customisation for a particular network and in effect the idea is to get it to the state of a genuine out-of-the-factory SIM-free phone.

Unlocking just makes the handset accept other SIMs.

So if you unlock a T-mobile handset, you'll still have - for example - things like Web'n'Walk or T-zones shortcut keys, and their little jingle when you switch on the phone. Likewise, if they've removed some features (e.g. Orange and Vodafone remove Nokia's own VOIP client from some Nokias) then that isn't available either.

However, some of these features need a particular brand's handset to work. For example, Three has Skype and MSN features that are non-standard and you can't download the same applications to install onto a non-Three phone.

Debranding can be involved and varies from phone to phone - some are not doable. Invariably the warranty is not valid after doing this as well, though in some cases it's possible to get it back to the original setup (assuming your phone still works enough when if you're doing this to get a warranty repair!)

However, 'standard' stuff like SMS, MMS and Voicemail - which works the same way on all networks just with different settings - should be configurable by network and quite often you can go onto their website and enter your number to be sent configuration messages to do so.

Emmbee1970

So if I buy a sim-free phone then it should work with my O2 payg sim card and all the features would be OK?

I just found one that said sim free/unlocked but from what you've said Sid, those two aren't the same thing anyway!! Is that right?

Thanks (and please excuse my ignorance on this matter )

Browntoa

your O2 sim card knows when its in a different phone and sends you the settings

Sid_Harper

Yup the basic O2 stuff will work on your unlocked phone. - watch out if it's a Motorola F3 though - I don't think that can display many characters and SMSs are very restricted (you can't even do upper case from what I remember reading). And certainly no MMS. It's more basic than the first ever Nokia Orange phone I had about 20 years ago!