• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

International unlocked phone...

jbakersatx

jbakersatx

Newbie
I have an friend that has found himself stuck in Belarus with a failing phone. If I were to grab him an unlocked phone off Amazon or wherever, is there anything particular I need to look for? Is there an important difference between a factory unlocked or international unlocked phone?

He mentioned something about their wall sockets being 220, I assume the phone doesn't care since there is going to be a transformer involved.. Or should I send him a special power cord? I am forcing him to switch to a galaxy from his really old iPhone so charging is a concern.

Any possible advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
jbakersatx said:
I have an friend that has found himself stuck in Belarus with a failing phone. If I were to grab him an unlocked phone off Amazon or wherever, is there anything particular I need to look for? Is there an important difference between a factory unlocked or international unlocked phone?
Click to expand...

Samsung phones from Amazon or Ebay, described as "international unlocked" might actually be grey import phones, e.g. from Hong Kong or UAE or wherever. that is something to watch out for. They should work with Belarus networks no problems though. Something else to watch out for, is AFAIK Samsung have a region locked activation on them, which basically means you must make a 5 minutes phone call using a carrier SIM from the region or country that the phone was intended for. Once it's done, there's no problem using it with any SIM. So if you're sending say a US version phone to Belarus, you need to activate it first with a US carrier SIM. This is usually stated on the outside of the carton.

jbakersatx said:
He mentioned something about their wall sockets being 220, I assume the phone doesn't care since there is going to be a transformer involved.. Or should I send him a special power cord? I am forcing him to switch to a galaxy from his really old iPhone so charging is a concern.

Any possible advice would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Pretty much all USB chargers are universal voltage so that shouldn't be a problem, so no additional step-down or step-up transformer required.
 
Last edited:
Great. Is there anything I can do on this end to make sure I send him a phone that he can just pop a sim card in and go? He told me that almost everyone there gets their phones from outside the country.
 
On the outside of the S8 Plus carton should be a sticker, looks like this. Which states the region that phone is intended to be sold and activated in, e.g. American Model.
samsung_region_lock_sticker_americas.jpg


Basically it needs to be initially activated with a carrier SIM from that region, once that's done as long as the phone is unlocked, it should work with any SIM. This is something that Samsung does to try and stop the grey market.

Also you may want to check the exact version you intended to send to Belarus, just to make sure it is 100% compatible with the networks there.
https://willmyphonework.net/
Where do people in Belarus usually buy their Samsung phones from, EU, EEA countries?
 
Last edited:
Apparently a lot of people have them sent from family and friends in the US. Especially iPhones. It doesn't seem like they trust their state run comms to sell them unadulterated phones. Rational or not, I don't know.

Thanks for the info.
 
IPhones are probably easier because there's no region locking with those AFAIK. Also there's relatively few variants around the world, whereas Samsung, it could be over 40-50 different S8 Plus variants globally.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom