Want to buy a cell phone from ebay (unlocked) will it work with my carrier?

[Denvers Dawgs]

Will an "unlocked" phone work with T-moblie? I have no idea what unlocked means?

[waheed]

YES.

Unlocked means that the phone will work on all networks. Usually, its service providers that lock phones so that they can only be used on their own network.

[Denvers Dawgs]

My friend who works @ motorola (not a kiosk, he's an engineer at motorola) and he just told me that it depends on the software that is shipped with the phone. He said that the phone would have to say t-mobile when it was turned on to work with t-moble t- zones? Anyone ever used an unlocked phone?

[doppletwo]

I bought my current phone used and the seller claimed it was unlocked.



But I wasn't really able to test that. He said it was originally T-Mobile and I use T-Mobile so the unlocking didin't matter for me.



If I take out the SIM card and turn it on the it no T-Mobile, just Nokia.



I bought mine off of Craigslist so I brought my SIM card with me and tested the phone before I bought it.



Research the specific phone you are looking at buying. Most likely there will be lots of info on any phone you might want.

[Denvers Dawgs]

Does it allow you to use the T-zones feature? I was told that if it wasn't T-Moble software(T-moble appears when turned on) that I can't use the T-zones feature to get ringtones/wallpapers, etc.

[Craig Tucker]

There is a difference between being unlocked and unbranded.

Unlocked means that the phone is not locked to a particular network so it will work with any networks simcard.

Unbranded means that the phone has the firmware that the manufacturers intended. If a phone is branded to say t mobile or vodafone then it has that service providers firmware which will mean that the menus and icons may be slightly different, for example a t-mobile branded phone may have an icon which takes you directly to T-zones wap site for downloading crap and paying through the nose for it.

However without the branded firmware all you would need to do would be to enter the url into the phones browser to take you to the wap site instead of clicking on a dedicated icon provided with the branded firmware.

[Denvers Dawgs]

Oh well that seems fine to me then. I'm not really going to use T-zones site, just thought that it had something to do with internet access. So the unlocked phone willl have no problem with internet access, even if it is not, branded with my t-mobile service.

[doppletwo]

I can access T-Zones with my phone, but I have never bought anything from T-Zones.

[Craig Tucker]

Oh well that seems fine to me then. I'm not really going to use T-zones site, just thought that it had something to do with internet access. So the unlocked phone willl have no problem with internet access, even if it is not, branded with my t-mobile service.

No you will just have to set up your phone for data transfer, this can be done pretty easily by talking to your service provider to make sure that your account is set up for data and then sending data settings to your phone via sms. This can be done from your service provider or phone manufacturers website.