To Heck with the Phone, What COMPANY?

M

Malou

New member
We're looking to leave Verizon due to their horrific gimping of all their phones. Is there a company out there, that anyone knows of, that does NOT gimp the firmware on the phones to require you to use all of /their/ services?

We're basically looking for a phone AND a company that will allow us to transfer data from to phone's removable memory (IE: SD card or Memory Stick, whatever) without going through the phone company's service.
 
no such thing in the US, most of them brand them, but if u want to Do it by urself, id get a gsm phones, since theyre much easier
 
You need to decide which carrier works best where you will use the phone - i.e. where you live, work, play, travel etc. as I did not see that on your post. Verizon and Cingular supposedly have the largest coverage area followed by T-Mo and Sprint.

Look at the online coverage maps and talk to friends and co-workers about which service they have and their likes and dislikes.
 
i am with verizon i can transfer music and pics from my card to comp i use the email trick for ringtones and what not most the phones are hackable from verizon .
 
I used to use QPST to 'hack' my phone, but it's giving me all sorts of problems lately. The issue I have is that we researched this phone specifically, and thought that all the features on it were great! And at the time, Verizon was the only cell service I could get where I worked (rural area.)

However, when we got these phones through Verizon, we didn't realize that Verizon had gimped the firmware, so that most of the features we bought the phone for were not available unless purchased as extras through Verizon :P I shouldn't have to /hack/ my phone to get the features that the manufacturer originally put in there.

Now, I'm having a lot of problems with QPST, which I've posted here: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1069712

If anyone could help with the QPST problems, that would be great also. But I really think I'm going to dump Verizon.

Maybe I'll look at T-Mobile.

One more question. How does the whole 'unlocking' thing work? Can anyone point me to a comprehensive FAQ about it? Thanks again!
 
Fell - I agree with you on the shouldn't have to hack your phone to use OEM features, that is why I will not be a Verizon customer until they stop crippling their phones.

As for unlocking. This really applies to GSM phones. Say you are with T-Mobile, and you like your phone, but want to switch to Cingular, or move to Canada and want to use it there. You would either call up T-Mobile and get the unlock code, or you would visit the Marketplace or search online for a retailer that could unlock it for you for a fee. Locking just means that the phone is locked to a specific carrier. Once it is unlocked, you can insert a SIM from any GSM provider, and use the phone across the world, providing that it has the proper band 850/900/1800/1900.
 
If you're in a rural area it would probably serve you well to also consider additional smaller companies for the best coverage that you may not even know covers your area. Alltel and USCC do very well in rural areas that they cover. There also may be another even smaller provider that covers your area--Dobson, Cellular South, Appalachian Wireless. If any of these providers cover your location they would be a good bet for coverage and even though all except Dobson are CDMA, don't let Verizon scorn you from the technology. Nobody locks down the phone like Verizon does.
 
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