Help! Buy a locked vs. unlocked RAZR? Anything I'm not considering?

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..... - 29 Dec 2006 21:56 GMT

I can buy a locked T-Mobile Razr for $150 with a $50 rebate, or get an
unlocked RAZR for $100 (which requires some programming).

Questions:

-Are both phones of the same build quality?

-Would I potentially get worse service using the unlocked phone, since it
needs programming? (Don't know how easy/hard that is, although it would be
done by the store)

Supposedly they both have a 1 year warranty.

Any other issues I need to consider, that are not obvious???

THANKS in advance

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BruceR - 29 Dec 2006 23:18 GMT

Buy the unlocked phone. Why have one that's locked? The build quality
is identical. The programming issue is not even an issue. You pop in
the SIM and you're done. For data, T-Mo will download the settings over
the air. The advantage of an unlocked phone is that you can use it with
other carriers' SIMs. Particularly useful if you will travel to any
foreign countries.

> I can buy a locked T-Mobile Razr for $150 with a $50 rebate, or get an
> unlocked RAZR for $100 (which requires some programming).
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> THANKS in advance

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Dennis Ferguson - 30 Dec 2006 00:09 GMT

> I can buy a locked T-Mobile Razr for $150 with a $50 rebate, or get an
> unlocked RAZR for $100 (which requires some programming).
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Any other issues I need to consider, that are not obvious???

The only problem with using a phone than isn't branded to T-Mobile is
that if you run into software bugs and need new software installed on
the phone to fix it, T-Mobile won't touch it. You take a small risk
if you can't get software updates for the phone. This in fact
happened to me with a RAZR I bought in Hong Kong (it would sometimes
do a power-on reset while I was talking on it), but I visit there
frequently and I was able to get the software replaced the next time
I went.

If you find this risk acceptable, or you are buying the unlocked
phone from a vendor who'll support it, then go ahead. If you are
worried about it, however, then note that in my experience T-Mobile
is fairly good about giving you the unlock code for their phones once
you've had it for a while, so if you aren't planning on travelling right
away the T-Mobile phone might not be so bad.

Dennis Ferguson

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