The benefits of having an unlocked iPhone are obvious, such as using a local SIM card when travelling or being able to shop around carriers to find the best deal for you, but the unknown’s and perceived risks when unlocking an iPhone often puts us off doing it.
With the rising cost of smartphone devices, people are more often choosing costly contracts which allow smaller upfront costs for devices, but these subsidies often leaves people with low data limits or less minutes. So is it worth it to unlock iPhone? Let’s weigh up the pros and cons.
Should I unlock iPhone?
We think so, and here’s why. Often people think a locked iPhone is the default, having to be stuck on one network is just the way it is. If you’ve shopped around and chosen the right contract you might well be happy with the data, minutes and coverage you’ve been offered with your iPhone contract. But there are a number of pitfalls even with a ‘good’ value contract. If you travel abroad your only option is to take the roaming allowance you are given, which can usually seem like enough but from experience with modern data demands and the speed of 4G, 12GB of data can be eaten in a few days! When travelling with an unlocked iPhone it’s easy to dive into a local carrier store and pick up a PAYG sim, usually costing $20 and will get you unlimited data for the period that you’re in that country. This allows you to maximise use of the iPhone for things like getting restaurant recommendations on the go or consuming video content about the area you’re in.
Trying to sell a locked iPhone is not only a nightmare to find the right buyer, but also leaves you feeling the depreciation on the iPhone was far too steep, selling an unlocked iPhone often offers a 20-30% price premium over a locked iPhone, as well as having many more people willing to buy it!
On the flip side horror stories can often be found online about people who have attempted to get their iPhone unlocked only to of been scammed, their iPhone damaged or discovered their warranty has been invalidated. So is there a safe way to unlock iPhone?
How to Unlock iPhone Safely
There are a few different ways to unlock iPhone, let’s sift through the good and the not so good.
A quick online search will throw up shady forum posts or even full websites promising to ‘Jailbreak’ your iPhone for free, this was risky enough back in the days of trying to unlock a Nokia 3310, but messing with a $1000 iPhone is asking for trouble, modern iPhone Jailbreaking often cripples device performance, invalidates warranties and generally does an underwhelming job of actually unlocking the iPhone.
You could visit your local high street iPhone repair shop, we can’t vouch for the quality of service at your local shop, as they can vary wildly but from experience they will generally get your iPhone unlocked at a reasonable fee. You’ll have to leave your iPhone with them whilst they unlock it, which is not only a massive inconvenience but also raises security issues too.
IMEI unlocking is the other option which appears when you have a look around online, this for us is the best method around, but even so it’s important to choose the best company.
IMEI unlocking works by getting a third party company to whitelist your iPhone in Apple’s own database. This means your iPhone is permanently unlocked, without the iPhone’s performance or warranty being effected.
Where Should I IMEI Unlock my Iphone?
When looking to IMEI unlock an iPhone, what are the important factors? For us it’s convenience, fast delivery, price and customer service.
We’ve tried out a few online IMEI unlocking services, and the one that we’re happy to recommend based on our criteria is iPhone Approved Unlock.
We got our iPhone XS Max unlock completed using their IMEI unlocking service and were genuinely surprised how easy it was, and why everyone isn’t getting their iPhone unlocked! All they needed from us was basic information like the model of iPhone, network the iPhone is locked to and the IMEI number which you simply get by dialling *#06# or finding it embossed on either the back of the device or in the SIM tray. Once we entered a few more basic details, and paid a really reasonable $28 we got an email where we could track our order as they completed the unlock. In this time we were able to use the iPhone as normal.
After a short while we got another email saying our iPhone unlock was complete. Amazingly all we had to do was get connected to a Wi-FI connection, place a SIM card from another carrier in and restart the iPhone, all this is doing is making sure the phone can get the all clear via Wi-Fi that it is now unlocked and ready to accept any SIM card you throw at it.
So, $28 lighter we now had an unlocked iPhone on our hands which was worth 20-30% more if we wanted to sell it on as well as being free to use any SIM card both around the world and domestically if we choose to shop around for a great SIM deal.
Make sure you do your homework and choose the right unlocking option for you, but having an unlocked iPhone is well worth it.
