I know that most GSM phones in the US are locked to their SIMs so that you can't use the phone on another network. But are the SIMs locked to the phones?

I'm interested in using a 3rd party phone on my AT&T account and it would be easier to not involve AT&T at all if I can just take the SIM out of my old phone and pop it in the new phone.

I don't know if it's any different in US, but here I don't think the SIM is locked to the phone. I don't know if it's even possible...

Stig

No, SIM cards are not locked to phones. Unless its stupid iPhones.

What you want to do is as simple as you describe. Provided of course that the new phone is unlocked.

I just took the SIM out of my stupid iPhone and put it in a Motorola F3. It works fine.

But it probably won't work in another iphone, don't they do lock them to specific sims instead of just the provider?

Edit: I guess I was wrong: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=526883

Perhaps here in the UK then? Or perhaps I've just dreamed this

Not that anyone cares, I'm thinking about getting a Kogan Agora to replace my work-provided Blackberry.

I care! Looks nice. I'll be interested to hear how you get on with Android.

BTW, every time I think of the name of the phone, this pops into my head:

Going off topic a little, but I think that's been done.

That Kogan brand simply badges Chinese products in case you weren't aware. Their TVs aren't the greatest which is what they're known for in Australia. I guess it all depends on who is badging it for them.

Fair enough. Thanks for the info. I'm going to try to get a remedy for the fact that the Blackberry 8820 sucks ass through my corporate account manager first.

Ouch, he wants to see a doctor about that.

Peter

I suppose that's what I get for posting half-awake and angry.

Who doesn't, these days?

True, but this guy Ruslan Kogan really is just an importer and has never designed any of his own products. He basically goes to China and finds factories and says something like: "I want this TV with these features and my name on it"

I give him credit for being enterprising and I think he's doing fairly well at it even though the brand name LCD TVs like Samsung are generally better for a quite a small amount more $s.

Apple, speaking as someone who is currently sitting in China and very much designing products. Yes, everything is *made* in China but there's a big difference between ODM products (badged) and using a contract manufacturer.

Hugo

I thought China blocked internet access to subversive web sites. How'd you manage to get through to the empegbbs?

With any luck the Chinese will use the unofficial empeg BBS as an example of advanced technical discourse and the FAQ as an example of perfect product documentation.

Great, just what we need, the fall of China blamed on haphazard intermittently-updated documentation.

Hmmm...
So far as I know, the last time Hugo spent his days cavorting in China was just before the iPhone came to market.

Now now, no rumor-mongering

I was in China a lot for the first phone (7 times, in fact), but shortly after that launched I became a dad and hence got out of factory trips for a while. In reality, there are builds going on all the time so you really can't read anything into me being here. Honest.

Hugo

I hope they pay you extra to feed us this bulls**t.

No no. China doesn't mind the good old empegbbs. I'm in Hangzhou right now. In fact there was some Chinese site cloning parts of BBS at one stage. As long as we don't say anything bad against the **** ****** ***** *** we'll be just fine

My employer's VPN however does not let me use it. It did for the first one or two times I tried it. After I got the standard blocked access message. They must grep the logs or something looking for standard BBS type paths so they can block things.

I would hope even someone badging would have more idea of what's going on:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22712/127/

Ah, John you read Engadget slightly more often than I do, was just about to post that.

As for EmpegBBS being blocked, a while ago when I was on Orange UK and felt like browsing from my phone it was blocked and classed as 'Adult Content' and they wanted my Credit Card number for age verification. Bunch of muppets.

@wfaulk if you're not totally against chunky sliding phones, you may like the G1 instead. I like mine a lot. If you're not on T-Mobile, the 'developer' phone is completely unlocked for any network, and the T-Mobile G1 can be unlocked easily with a small charge in various places.

I've heard bad things about the usability of unlocked T-Mobile G1s. Hadn't looked at the developer edition yet, but I'm not really wanting to pay $424 for it.

I'll find out soon how it works. Mine will be unlocked and running on another network at the end of my contract in around 3 months time.

Unlocked G1's are fully functional...aside from a lack of 3G.

I should know, I have one on AT&T.

Not quite fully functional is it :P Dropping down to EDGE or GPRS is painful.