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The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

gigaom.com

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Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#81

Post by mdcatlin »

cbhl wrote: post #8

Different regions have different frequencies, so this might just be a warning that the Note 3 isn't penta-band.

I'm a software engineer and have worked on bringing some consumer products to market which have cellular radios. Even though the GSM standard is "Global", there are different frequency assignments in different nations. So getting the software to work on multiple carriers, and getting the antenna-array tuned to work on multiple frequencies are two unrelated tasks.

Usually the trade-off is device thickness. If you add another element to the antenna array you can make it work on both 700Mhz and 750Mhz. But if you try to tune for 725Mhz you'll get crap performance in all countries.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#83

Post by fpgeek »

Osmium wrote: post #80
bdcravens wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, you can't put Newsstand into a folder

Actually you can as of iOS 7.

Yes and no. Apparently there's a bug that can crash iTunes if you put Newsstand in a folder: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23039388#23039388

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#84

Post by rallison »

edward wrote: post #14

My HP printer is region-locked. When I moved from Europe to the US it refused to accept ink cartridges bought in the US.

I honestly thought this was a troll comment intended to show how ridiculous this sort of thing would be if region locking applied to printers. I was not pleased to find out that this is, actually, a thing.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#85

Post by pasbesoin »

GFischer wrote: post #29
edward wrote: post #14

My HP printer is region-locked. When I moved from Europe to the US it refused to accept ink cartridges bought in the US.

My Samsung printer (ML2165W) has some similar stupidity. I had to flash it to accept a toner bought elsewhere. It caught me off guard, my previous laser printer (also Samsung) happily accepted other cartridges (I would have bought Samsung, but they were out of stock).

Thank you for including the model number.

I haven't turned it into a business model nor personal public initiative, yet, but I think we are to the point of needing to name and shame. And then conduct, or withhold, our business accordingly.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#86

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

DominikR wrote: post #38

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has the same sticker and works with every SIM. It's just that Samsung lacks focus and is incompetent at communicating with its customers and non Korean employees. Probably some idiot manager in Europe decided to put this sticker on the case and they don't know about it (or didn't understand this) in their headquarter.

According to Samsung only S4s made after July 2013 will be impacted. It has been well confirmed that it isn't just a threat, if you insert the wrong SIM you get an error.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#88

Post by fpgeek »

mikeash wrote: post #12
incongruity wrote: post #7

If this is driven by carrier request, as the article speculates, then it is yet another example of how the mobile market is broken... Are phone manufacturers selling to consumers/end-users or are they selling to networks/providers? You can't do both, equally -- at least not at the moment -- because the carrier's interests and profit models generally directly conflict with the interests of consumers. Until the wireles…

Apple still works with the carriers quite a bit. For example, you can't turn on tethering unless the carrier allows it (often requiring you to pay more money), and most iPhones sold in the US are locked to a single carriers. But who can blame them? Of the $650 cost of a new iPhone, the user only pays $200, while the carrier pays $450. Apple knows where their bread is buttered.

Absolutely. Carriers are Apple's biggest customers, not end users.

Possibly the funniest part of the "you are the product" meme many Apple fans are fond of is how many of them fail to notice that they are the product that Apple has sold to a carrier.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#89

Post by fpgeek »

kevinpet wrote: post #87

This is probably about pricing in different markets. They can't sell cheaply in China if those devices end up on ebay being shipped to the US.

But strangely the Asian models (e.g. Hong Kong) you'd think Samsung would worry most about in the grey market don't seem to have this restriction: http://ausdroid.net/2013/09/26/galaxy-note-3-sim-restriction...
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