Just to let you know that the phone that caused various problems on ringplus - the unlocked carrier free g930U version which has bands for all carriers - is working fine on other sprint MVNOs. I received confirmation from several that it can be activated and successfully have it working on Tello with the sprint universal sim.
Awesome phone that is getting cheaper with the imminent launch of the S8. Picked mine up for $265 with the 10% off ebay coupon that expires today!
Who sells the g930U and which carrier is branded on it?
The g930U is carrier free. Sold by bestbuy or samsung, BH video + others if you want to buy it new.
The g935u is the edge version.
It is technically different than the versions sold by all the carriers?
Yes it has the full range of lte bands. The carrier versions block a range of them to make it harder to use elsewhere.
No carrier bloat as well.
Apparently the hardware for all the US variants is the same, so it's only the firmware that is blocking certain LTE bands. That must be why there are a lot of G930U listings on ebay, but if you check the IMEI, the phone shows up as (originally) being a different variant.
yes I see quite a few sellers listing as the g930u firmware rather than the actual model so you do need to check. A IMEI check will bring up the actual model.
I was warned by a few sellers that if I buy a sprint version with the firmware changed to g930U and use it on sprint this could lock the phone back to sprint.
Can a firmware change of a carrier specific model open it up to be used on other carriers? Or it won't work on CDMA carriers that haven't whitelisted the ESN?
interesting... so to prevent issues with phone sim locking, we should get the Verizon post paid version then flash the rom?
Pretty sure it won't work on CDMA if it's not whitelisted. So if you want to keep Sprint as an option, get either the P or a real-deal U version.
Why would the Verizon model be better?
Verizon LTE phones are automatically SIM-unlocked due to prior FCC agreement: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/09/24/verizon-iphone-5-unlocked/, http://www.androidcentral.com/yes-verizon-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-are-sim-unlocked
Then you can flash the 930U firmware and make use of any of the LTE bands: https://forum.xda-developers.com/verizon-galaxy-s7/help/to-unlock-lte-band-12-g930v-t3436418
Though, as pointed out earlier, non-Sprint versions won't be whitelisted by IMEI and will probably not activate on Sprint, regardless of firmware.
So, then, what benefit is derived by changing the ROM on the Verizon model? Is it to use the GSM bands that aren't available with the Verizon ROM?