Once their plans with their cellular providers are over many consumers these days are investigating the idea of buying and unlocked cellular phone. Here are some pros and cons that have been listed which should help you to decide whether unlocked cellular phones make sense for you and whether your next cellular phone should be an unlocked version. First of all lets explain what an unlocked cellular phone is as the concept is something new fangled to a lot of people.
An unlocked cellular phone is one that is not locked either in the hardware or in the software to any one cellular provider or to any one cellular network. This means that you buy the phone directly from the manufacturer and the phone does not have and software or any logos from the cellular networks on the phone. Once you have the phone you can go to your cellular phone service provider and get a SIM card which is a chip that helps identify your phone to the network and allow it to connect. This SIM card is then inserted into your phone which is what ties it to the cellular service. At any point you can swap out the SIM for a different one and connect to the same network with a different number and a different plan or to any network provides a connection on the same bands as the radio in your phone.
This leads to one of the biggest advantages of unlocked cell phones which is network portability. For people who travel abroad very often and do not want to be hit with ridiculous international roaming charges they can just pop in a SIM card for a local network in whichever country that they happen to find themselves in. They are also not locked into a contract with their own cellular phone service either with their phones or with a contract so they can drop their service whenever they want and they can even use a pay as you go or a pre paid cellular service.
The disadvantages of going the unlocked cell phone route though are that even though you have a wider choice of cell phones you will normally end up paying a much higher price for them as the cellular network normally heavily subsidise the prices of phones that they sell locked. Unless you are able to get a much cheaper plans with an unlocked cell phone it may just be a better deal to buy a locked and subsidised phone. That is unless of course you value the freedom to drop your plan and move to another network when you choose.
Paul A. is in the marketing team of N1, which specializes in unlocked cellular phone sales.
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