vB Easy Archive - Is the S40 truly unlocked?

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Is the S40 truly unlocked?
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Posted by: jattstar

Ive been reading some of the other posts, and a question that comes to my mind is, for the price i paid for the S40, is the phone truly unlocked? Some ppl have psted that the phone locks on to the first SIM card it gets? Now does anyone have any experience with buying the S40 here, and taking it overseas and getting a sim card there?

Posted by: Spectre

Most of the S40's are unlocked. In the U.S., the only ones that are being sold with subsidy locks are those that are sold by Cingular; and, depending upon which Cingular agent you buy it from, it may or may not be locked. The simplest way to tell the difference is to look at the Siemens part number on the inside of the battery compartment. If the last four characters of the part number are A190, it's a Cingular subsidy-locked phone. If the last four characters of the part number are A170, it's unlocked - the America's version. There are other versions being sold by gray marketeers in the the U.S. that are imported from Asia and Europe. The last four characters of these phones indicate that they were imported: A100 (Spain); A160 (Germany); A220 (Asian Pacific rim). These are the most common ones, and none are locked. One thing to beware of, though, is the software version. Many of the phones have OLD versions that don't perform well. In the A170, the oldest version you can get is 2.9.0, and in the A190 the ONLY version you can get is 3.1.0. Siemens is now shipping version 3.2.0 on the A170. Version 5.0.0 has been released but will likely not show up on A170's until the existing inventories are depleted. If you buy one with an old software version, Siemens will update it to the latest release at no charge (you will have to pay shipping to their facility in Minnesota). It usually takes about a week to get it back. If you buy an A190, they can't update the software yet as Cingular has not yet approved later versions of the software for their network.

As to buying a SIM in Europe - go for it. Works great.

Hope this has helped.

Posted by: Okigire

Fido, in Canada, are selling these phones locked.

I heard that North American versions have firmware 4.0.0 available. Eurpoean/Asian markets have firmware 5.0.0, and it may be "just another version of" 4.0.0... not sure about this. Haven't heard anybody confirm otherwise yet.

Anybody know if and/or where Siemens is in Canada?