With Vodafone, IPhone on ebay or O2 and jailbreak?

Dopey · 13-10-2009 10:05AM #1

Folks,

Apologies in advance if this has been asked many time before. I had a browse through the forum and couldn't find an answer to this question. Search is currently unavailable.

I was looking at unlocked 16GB IPhones on EBay to use in Eire on Vodafone. After delivery etc they cost roughly 600-700 Euro.

Does it make more sense to purchase from O2 and jailbreak? O2 are charging €519 on prepay. I feel nervous about the warranty when buying from Hong Hong.

By the way, I can't switch to O2 at the moment and would like to get one before Vodafone start selling in March 2010.

Thanks in advance.

Leiva · 13-10-2009 10:59AM

Dopey wrote: »

Folks,

Apologies in advance if this has been asked many time before. I had a browse through the forum and couldn't find an answer to this question. Search is currently unavailable.

I was looking at unlocked 16GB IPhones on EBay to use in Eire on Vodafone. After delivery etc they cost roughly 600-700 Euro.

Does it make more sense to purchase from O2 and jailbreak? O2 are charging €519 on prepay. I feel nervous about the warranty when buying from Hong Hong.

By the way, I can't switch to O2 at the moment and would like to get one before Vodafone start selling in March 2010.

Thanks in advance.

Any family or friends in Australia , New Zealand , Belguim or Greece or Italy ?
If so .... order from the Apple store for that country and get it shipped to them to forward to you .
You will then have a factory unlocked phone and able to use on any network without ever having to worry about it re-locking.
A 32gb 3gs from apple.au will set you back €620 all in (free shipping)

The peace of mind of never having to worry about your phone been knocked off the Network is worth the extra few bob .

You will hear lingo like "unlocked" and "jailbroken" , they are 2 different things .
Unlocked = able to use on other networks (see my note below about the 2 different unlocks)
Jailbroken = Phone restrictions for use of 3rd party software removed or jailbroken .

My 2 pence worth.
M

(p.s) Most "unlocked" phones on ebay are "software" unlocked and not factory unlocked .
The difference is that a software unlock is prone to be rendered usless by Apple in the future .
A factory unlocked will never re-lock as they leave the factory in the above countries unlocked , the laws prohibit the carriers from locking particular handsets to a particular carrier .

Dopey · 13-10-2009 11:06AM

mixednuts wrote: »

Any family or friends in Australia , New Zealand , Belguim or Greece or Italy ?
If so .... order from the Apple store for that country and get it shipped to them to forward to you .
You will then have a factory unlocked phone and able to use on any network without ever having to worry about it re-locking.
A 32gb 3gs from apple.au will set you back €620 all in (free shipping)

The peace of mind of never having to worry about your phone been knocked off the Network is worth the extra few bob .

My 2 pence worth.
M

(p.s) Most "unlocked" phones on ebay are "software" unlocked and not factory unlocked .
The difference is that a software unlock is prone to be rendered usless by Apple in the future .
A factory unlocked will never re-lock as they leave the factory in the above countries unlocked , the laws prohibit the carriers from locking particular handsets to a particular carrier .

Thanks for the post mixednuts. That's an option. I have a friend in Oz. You don't have to worry then about locking issues at a later date but you do have to worry about warranty issues. I would have to send the phone back to Oz if there is a problem. Is that correct?

Leiva · 13-10-2009 11:40AM

Warranty Yes ..if your jailbreaking there is a also risk of voiding the warrenty
I have to do my homework on that but someone suggested just factory resetting the phone , which will wipe the jailbreak ,does this show up when apple are repairing ?? ..I dont know .

I also have read that Apple will direct you to a "half way house" for repairs to your phone (say the UK )if you say you are living in Oz but working in Ireland for a few months ...again this is not confirmed .

Factory Unlocked phones will ALWAYS remain unlocked to all Networks .

Heres were i got mine :
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com%2Fau%2Fbrowse%2Fhome%2Fshop_iphone%2Ffamily%2Fiphone%3Fmco%3DMTAyNTM5ODU

M

J-blk · 13-10-2009 02:50PM

mixednuts wrote: »

I have to do my homework on that but someone suggested just factory resetting the phone , which will wipe the jailbreak ,does this show up when apple are repairing ??

If you did a factory restore, it would be pretty much impossible to detect a previous jailbreak - the problem would be if you had to send back a jailbroken phone that you cannot restore for whatever reason (e.g the PC no longer detects it), then what?

But in any case, Apple still has this weird policy with the iPhone of only providing warranty for it in its' originating country (the exact opposite of pretty much any other Apple product):

Can I get my iPhone serviced outside the country of purchase?
No, service for eligible repairs is only available in the country where your iPhone was originally purchased.

http://www.apple.com/ie/support/iphone/service/faq/#repair3

So there's still the warranty issue with buying the phone from some other country...

With Vodafone, IPhone on ebay or O2 and jailbreak?

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