Help: Is it true that all phones from Carphone Warehouse are unlocked?

RevTheory

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

I'm thinking of buying this phone, but I'm on Tesco mobile and they only do T-mobile or Orange.

...is it safe to buy thinking this will be unlocked/unbranded??

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/SAMSUNG-I5500-EUROPA

its unlocked, i was playing with one this morning at work, had vodafone sim in it, when colleagues viring

acharris

Hey, my HTC desire from CPW was unlocked with no branding. The sales assistant got the phone and ask me sim free, payg or contract.

MissKeith

I work for CPW, all phones except iPhones are unlocked.

Rev

I've bought so many phones from CPW I've lost count and never had a locked one.

In fact, if I want a phone from there I usually buy it on whatever network is selling it cheapest and stick my o2 sim in it. I've done this with orange, vodafone, t-mobile, virgin and o2. They've all been unlocked.

shoperholicnot

whenever i have bought a phone from CPW they have been unlocked, just ask to make sure.
I just got a desire on orange from mobiles.co.uk (part of CPW) and its unlocked and unbranded

gjchester

Consider how CPW work, they stock all the networks so need to have stock that can work on all networks. Hence if they want to stock the Desire they could either stock 10 models of each networks branded and locked stock, or say 20 mdels unlocked. From the stores point of view it's better to have a little stock they can use for any network than a lot of stock thats network specific. Keeps stock levels down which means more space in the shop and less cash tied up in stock.

Anything that is on more than one network they'll tend to have unlocked.

Anything "exclusive" to any one network will have been sourced from the network and may be locked (think the Dell Streak thats on o2 only so will probably be o2 locked and branded)

Contract phone on Vodafone and o2 tend to be unlocked but thats not always true.
PAYG tends to come already set up and everything in the box so thats more likely to be locked too.

I've had phones from CPW locked and unlocked on both contract and PAYG. Theres never too much logic to it, It all depends what stock they have in store at the time, if a mobile co was to do a deal on cheap handsets as a promotion they may stock those in preference to unlocked stock if the deal was good.

Unltimatly as has been said ask the saleperson and they should be able to tell you.

DUTR

Strange responses, long ago, 121 and Orange handsets would always be locked, whilst Cellnet and Vodafone were often unlocked, This changed slightly after the popularity of dual/multi band handsets, I got my Satio from CPW last October with an Orange PAYG sim, the handset is not branded and is not sim locked from purchase as I have always used it with my o2 sim.

fuzzgun19

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

I'm thinking of buying this phone, but I'm on Tesco mobile and they only do T-mobile or Orange.

...is it safe to buy thinking this will be unlocked/unbranded??

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/SAMSUNG-I5500-EUROPA

Thanks guys, I bought it (T-Mobile one) and it was unlocked and unbranded