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Samsung's Latest: the Immobile Mobile

S

SiempreTuna

Android Expert
Samsung have found a new market segment: the mobile phone you can only use at home*!

Announcing the new Note 3: the first region locked phablet!

Got your Note in Europe? Be confident it won't work with one of those dodgy US SIM cards! It's Samsung's new Roaming Fee Guarantee!

Samsung: taking the 'G' out of Global System for Mobile communication.

Buy one today: your network will LOVE you!

All I can say: WTF :eek:



* without paying extortionate roaming fees
 
It has been confirmed that the handset along with the Galaxy S4, S4 Mini, Galaxy S3, and Galaxy Note 2 also have a regionalSIM lock in place.
This is for hardware that was built after the end of July this year, but this issue has been clarified by Samsung. Basically if an owner activates their new Samsung handset in the country it was originally purchased, it can then be used elsewhere.
So as long as users do this they can easily travel to other regions and insert a local SIM card to avoid sometimes expensive roaming charges on their normal phone contract. So the warning sticker that is being placed inside the packaging of Samsung smartphones is basically warning purchasers that if they activate the device in another country, this option of using a local SIM in other regions won't be possible.
 
I'd say they're trying to clamp down on the grey market. If you buy and activate the device in the country it was purchased, it's not a problem. We do actually get quite a lot of grey market non-Chinese/With-Google Samsungs.

BTW it's not all about smuggled iPhones any more in the PRC. High-end Samsungs have become the hot property for some of the touts as well now.

Notice how the EU is treated as one entity(unlike ahem Google), which is good
note_region_lock.jpg
 
I know folks have successfully used a Mexican SIM (not sure what carrier) with their Verizon S3, but not a Euro one. Wonder if it would work?
 
mikedt said:
I'd say they're trying to clamp down on the grey market. If you buy and activate the device in the country it was purchased, it's not a problem. We do actually get quite a lot of grey market non-Chinese/With-Google Samsungs
Click to expand...

That's what the el Reg hack thought, too - basically, just like the movie industry, they see it as a way of maintaining price differentials between markets.

Given the number of stolen phones that end up in, for example, Africa, an unintended benefit may be that it makes Samsungs marginally less attractive to thieves .. or it would, if the thieves worked that out however, given they're thieves, chances are working things out is not exactly their strong point :D

I'm sure there are very few people who actually care, but personally I find it kinda irritating. Primarily because it would have been a pain for me in the past. Last Samsung I had (worst phone ever), I originally bought in Singapore but wound up using extensively in Belgium, on a local SIM. And the time, I was flat broke and buying a new phone really wasn't an option, particularly since you couldn't get network subsidised phones in either Singapore or Beligum at the time.
 
There's some ambiguity here, some sources say it just has to be activated in the region it was purchased in first and then other SIMS will work. Supposedly Samsung corporate will be releasing a clarifying statement this week.
 
redpill2016 said:
There's some ambiguity here, some sources say it just has to be activated in the region it was purchased in first and then other SIMS will work. Supposedly Samsung corporate will be releasing a clarifying statement this week.
Click to expand...

I find the entire thing annoying. If you have bought your device outright, they have no business putting any kind of restriction on it, be it carrier or region. If I bought a device and decided not to activate it right away because I was being relocated to another country for whatever reason, then I should be able to activate it wherever I please.

I would like to see this smacked down by the legal system.
 
This is a pretty interesting feature. Perhaps it should be included on iPhones. There are so many stories about people buying iPhones in the US only to ship it overseas to sell at a higher price. In California, there was an incident where someone hired a bunch of people to line up for the new iPhone. Apparently, some fights broke out at that line up and police had to come deal with the situation.
 
Codegerm said:
I find the entire thing annoying. If you have bought your device outright, they have no business putting any kind of restriction on it, be it carrier or region. If I bought a device and decided not to activate it right away because I was being relocated to another country for whatever reason, then I should be able to activate it wherever I please.

I would like to see this smacked down by the legal system.
Click to expand...

It is annoying, but it would be less annoying if Samsung had communicated this better instead of making it a confusing surprise.

They should have simply said that there are some unscrupulous unauthorized vendors that are transporting phones from one region to another to make a few bucks and thus compete with authorized dealers in those markets, which is not fair to them or to Samsung. As a result, they've added the step that you must initially activate the phone in its proper region after which you are free to use your unlocked phone anywhere and with any SIM like usual. Will that completely eliminate the gray market? Of course not, it just makes it harder to do because then you would need to have the phone opened and activated in its home region. Suddenly you're buying a phone from another country and it comes already opened up, with who knows what kind of SIM card used to initialize it, etc. I still don't like the practice and I think this is going to cause Samsung more of a headache than anything, but they could have handled it much better.
 
redpill2016 said:
It is annoying, but it would be less annoying if Samsung had communicated this better instead of making it a confusing surprise.

They should have simply said that there are some unscrupulous unauthorized vendors that are transporting phones from one region to another to make a few bucks and thus compete with authorized dealers in those markets, which is not fair to them or to Samsung. As a result, they've added the step that you must initially activate the phone in its proper region after which you are free to use your unlocked phone anywhere and with any SIM like usual. Will that completely eliminate the gray market? Of course not, it just makes it harder to do because then you would need to have the phone opened and activated in its home region. Suddenly you're buying a phone from another country and it comes already opened up, with who knows what kind of SIM card used to initialize it, etc. I still don't like the practice and I think this is going to cause Samsung more of a headache than anything, but they could have handled it much better.
Click to expand...

Again no, that affects us as legitimate consumers, and shouldn't be allowed. How is it unfair to Samsung? They are getting the money from the sale of it. Only counterfeit devices would he hurting them. As far as hurting the dealers, that is hogwash. It is called competition people, and that is something that helps keep prices under control. Even if you have people buying something in one country to sell in another, they still have to buy it and pay the cost of shipping it over, plus any import fees.
 
To the vast majority of consumers this does not impact them at all, besides what do you mean by "this shouldn't be allowed?" It's Samsung's product, shouldn't they be able to sell it how they want? The market will dictate whether it's an unwise policy by punishing their market share. Asking governments to wade in here is probably only going to make things worse.

Competition is Samsung vs. iPhone vs. HTC, etc. Authorized dealers getting undercut by the gray market is not so much competition as it is some opportunistic individuals making a buck off of Authorized dealers' and Samsung's advertising without making a similar outlay themselves. But if you want to call it competition, fine, then shouldn't Samsung have the ability to keep their Authorized dealers competitive by putting roadblocks in front of gray market importers?

To be clear, I don't like the policy and I don't think it will be worthwhile for them, but the idea that this should somehow be outlawed by governments or that Samsung should be forced to sit back and watch their their market segmentation model get hosed by profiteering gray market dealers is sort of silly.
 
Well to be clear, that practice allows them to artificially keep a price high in a region and that stifles competition. Yes, it is competition among dealers, just like buying the same exact product from Best Buy vs Walmart. Someone buying something in one country and selling it in another, as long any taxes or import fees required by the country in which they sell it are being paid, then it is not a gray market. They are after all buying it from a dealer, and have to sell it for a higher price than they paid for it. No, Samsung nor any other company should be doing that. Allowing that is saying "Because you live in this country, I am going to make you pay twice as much as this other guy cause he lives in this other country", that is what is silly.
 
They aren't forcing anyone to buy their product, the idea that products cost different things in different places is nothing new. It's not like Samsung just arbitrarily decides to screw people by charging a higher price somewhere, there are business reasons why they do so and it's not unreasonable to expect them to do what they can to protect their business interests. The competition factor is that you can go buy an HTC or an iPhone instead if you don't like their policy, but given the practical impact here for most consumers, I understand why they are doing it. I don't like the policy any more than you do, but this is the nature of a global marketplace that has many different types of economies and different costs associated with them.
 
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