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How are network carriers still so critical when choosing a phone in the USA? Seems to be a unique situation compared to other markets (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 3 days ago by Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/AskUSA@discuss.online

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I was reading a bit about different phones, and one point that comes up a lot from USA commenters is that people cannot just use any phone they want, it needs to be a specific model supporting their network carrier, especially the network bands.

I live in Europe, this is pretty unknown here, and from what I gather, Asian buyers are also free to use any phone they want.

How come that nothing has ever been made to improve that situation?

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[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Interesting. See my other comment for examples of US people still bringing their carrier up when looking for a phone, seems like people aren't aware it matters anymore

Edit: found another comment saying that "even if imported, they are not compatible" about Sony phones, is this correct?

https://reddit.com/comments/1i7o7z7/comment/m8mx3jw

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

https://www.reddit.com/r/PickAnAndroidForMe/comments/1ch6bh9/good_flat_screen_phone_for_the_us/

specifically bands B71 and N71

Those are 5g bands. Not mmWave 5g bands, but I could understand the confusion. OP mostly just wanted a phone that explicitly worked with those bands.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PickAnAndroidForMe/comments/1grp88a/between_two_flagships_pixel_8_and_galaxy_s24_for/

That one is more about the pixel having a shit modem.

My carrier is T-Mobile if that matters.

I don't think they even thought it matters, just felt like mentioning if there's anything that might make it weird.

The last one they just mentioned their carrier at the start and nothing else after that. So I don't think we really have that big of an issue.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Alright. Just to finish, what with that comment saying that “even if imported, they are not compatible” about Sony phones, is this correct?

https://reddit.com/comments/1i7o7z7/comment/m8mx3jw

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That comment makes no sense to me. My friend has an imported Sony phone and it works just fine on US carriers. IDK if somethings changed recently, but I don't see why it wouldn't work unless the carrier is explicitly blocking them.

I know for example Verizon will not allow phones that don't support voice over LTE. But any modern phone that isn't dog shit should support that. But I'd hope Sony would support that.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Interesting, so that person was probably incorrectly informed!

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

They may not be wrong, his phone is about a year or two old so things could have changed since then.

But that said it doesn't make any sense outside of the VOLTE thing or some other feature that some carrier requires.