A question for US Note 3 owners.

[dynomot]

Please humour me.

Here in the UK every Note 3 purchased is an international Note 3, an SM-N9005.
Some have carrier branding which is very very light and at the most is an addition start screen ('3' UK spring to mind) and various network (carrier) apps "baked" into the firmware. Any network apps are in addition to the normal features and there are no restrictions to things like tethering enforced. Phones purchased from a carrier (in the UK : O2, Vodafone UK, EE - formerly Orange and T-mobile, and '3', other networks/carriers are available but use the four mentioned's network.) are usually "SIM Locked" so only a SIM from the carrier the phone was purchased from will work. Phones can be unlocked to work on any network.

Now it is completely possible to root and then flash any SM-N9005 firmware (Provided it is equal or greater in version number, ie 4.4.2) from anywhere in the world and it will function fine here in the UK. Indeed my own phone runs unbranded British firmware rather than Vodafone UK's flavour of it.

My questions are, with different model numbers, heavily branded and sometimes restricted firmwares and firmwares provided by the carriers rather than Samsung how you fair ? I understand that you, like us in the UK can get your phone unlocked and it will work on another carrier if you pop in their SIM, but how do you go on with OTA updates ? Do you still get the old carriers firmware updates ? What happens with built in carrier apps ? Obviously they won't work with the new and different carrier.

Just curious.

 

[Napalm]

Please humour me.

Here in the UK every Note 3 purchased is an international Note 3, an SM-N9005.
Some have carrier branding which is very very light and at the most is an addition start screen ('3' UK spring to mind) and various network (carrier) apps "baked" into the firmware. Any network apps are in addition to the normal features and there are no restrictions to things like tethering enforced. Phones purchased from a carrier (in the UK : O2, Vodafone UK, EE - formerly Orange and T-mobile, and '3', other networks/carriers are available but use the four mentioned's network.) are usually "SIM Locked" so only a SIM from the carrier the phone was purchased from will work. Phones can be unlocked to work on any network.

Now it is completely possible to root and then flash any SM-N9005 firmware (Provided it is equal or greater in version number, ie 4.4.2) from anywhere in the world and it will function fine here in the UK. Indeed my own phone runs unbranded British firmware rather than Vodafone UK's flavour of it.

My questions are, with different model numbers, heavily branded and sometimes restricted firmwares and firmwares provided by the carriers rather than Samsung how you fair ? I understand that you, like us in the UK can get your phone unlocked and it will work on another carrier if you pop in their SIM, but how do you go on with OTA updates ? Do you still get the old carriers firmware updates ? What happens with built in carrier apps ? Obviously they won't work with the new and different carrier.

Just curious.

most of the unlocked phones I've put my hands on over here - tend to not have any of the carrier apps. however - if you have an unlocked phone and you are on a prime carrier (over here that'd be AT&T or Verizon) when you put in their sim card and boot the device - it will have to receive a new baseband software from the carrier

at least that's how I understand it - I could be wrong. over here most of the newer unlocked phones are also marketed as Developer phones - which is bare. again though - the few I've had in my hand.