5mo ago

Potential downsides of buying a brand new soft-unlocked (carrier-unlocked) phone?

I'm looking to buy a Pixel 7 Pro and found a local shop offering two options: brand new and "brand new, soft-unlocked." I was told the soft-unlocked version is carrier-unlocked (likely from US carriers like Verizon) and will remain unlocked unless I factory reset it. If I do reset it, they said it’s a quick 5-minute fix to unlock again.

The price difference between the two is about $60. Does what they’re saying make sense, or should I be concerned about potential issues down the road?

11 comments

Potentially no manufacturers warranty if they aren't an authorized seller.
If you buy it directly from Google it'll be unlocked.
"will remain unlocked unless I factory reset it"
I'd stay away from anything like that, it's unnecessary.

For me the advantage of buying an unlocked phone from the phone manufacturer is avoiding the bloatware from the carrier.
- That's not what OP is doing.
  He's buy a "brand new" phone the store opened and unlocked.
  Completely different, and if a store is doing that, they're probably doing other shady adjacent shit.
  I wouldn't buy any "brand new" expensive electronic that's already been opened and had shit done to it

I buy all of my phones carrier-unlocked, and have never had a problem.
Potential pitfalls are if the IMEI is blacklisted, which could happen if the phone is reported as stolen, or if the radio deck isn't compatible with your carrier's network.
In the US, the AT&T and T-Mobile networks are pretty open, and you just need to pop in your SIM card. I don't have experience with Verizon to know if you can bring your own device or not, but I imagine as long as the phone can work with Verizon then its probably just a matter of visiting a store to have it activated.
- TMobile is pretty open, but AT&T a lot less so (though still more permissive than Verizon).
  Basically any capable phone will be accepted on TMob, but AT&T will refuse to allow "unsupported" devices even if they are compatible. They shut out my OnePlus 3 which was working perfectly fine with VoLTE and VoWiFi for being too old despite being on a recent Lineage build. So instead of getting a new device, I switched to T-Mobile lol.
  
  That's good to know. I've pretty much always been a TMO customer aside from a couple of years when I was with Cingular around the time of their buyout. They were pretty open back then.
- I have Verizon, and you can absolutely give them your own device, you don't have to buy from them. You just have to make sure the phone supports their proprietary network protocol, which is why Verizon usually has their own version of devices compatible with their network.

DO NOT BUY FROM VERIZON if you want to unlock your bootloader. This also applies to Rogers in Canada and EE in the UK. They will force your bootloader to be locked for life, creating more e-waste. This sounds sketchy, needing to keep a phone on the same Android install to be unlocked. I would not advise you to buy this device, because I've never heard of this phenomenon. I can't say for sure, but it sounds like the seller may have installed malicious apps that will be removed if the device is factory reset, so the sellers wants you to not reset it in order to keep the malicious app on the system. This is just a guess, and this could be a new scummy thing created by carriers to keep their customers attached to them.

You can "unlock" a locked phone.
You can buy a factory unlocked phone.
I wouldn't buy a "brand new" manually unlocked phone.
You're also going to spend a lot of money at once, where a provider would do interest free over two years plus likely a discount, and your not leaving till the contract is over.
I always take interest free deals, and so should you.

If it's stolen, that's a downside. If it was actually carrier unlocked versus some guy did it and said it was, could you trust they didn't put anything else on the phone? How is the sellers reputation?

Are we sure a software update won't lock you out of your own phone? Seems sus to me. I recommend Swappa, I quit doing phone agreements and just buy "like new" now.

11 comments