Daniel ([info]e_dan) wrote,
@ 2009-04-05 19:38:00
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Current location:Kirmish's
Current mood: confused

Does anyone know about unlocked phones and 3 SIMs and GPS and stuff?
Quick call for any tech knowledge as I'm woefully under informed on this one.

- I've got a '3' phone account. I'm going to buy, outright, an unlocked Nokia 5800. I know that the SIM will work in the phone as it's 3G and supports their USIM thingie, which is to say I know it will work for phone calls.

What I want to know is 2 things:

- First, given that the 5800 has GPS, how does phone GPS work? Is it linked to the phone service provider? Does it need to download things from the internet? Or will the phone GPS work whether it's got a SIM card in or not?

- Second, will I be able to connect to the web? Will the 5800 just be able to use SIM info to connect, or do I have to have all the special 'Planet 3' software loaded to access the web, download email etc.


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[info]strangedave
2009-04-06 04:17 am UTC (link)
GPS positioning is phone network independent, and doesn't require a SIM for raw positioning, but the GPS software probably downloads maps via the phone data network which does require a SIM.

As others have said, the phone should work fine, but you will want a data plan and may need to do weird configuration things to make it work correctly.


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[info]e_dan
2009-04-06 11:08 am UTC (link)
Cheers Dave - as mentioned above, after what you and Thorfy and others said plus various other investigations it seems that if I buy one of the stoopid 'I love anal sex with 3's boring internet sites ooh yeah' packages then it ALSO gives me the ability to ignore 3 and access the wider 'web. Also, the GPS stuff is independent, yes.

Now to decide whether I want to go with the 5800 NOW or get an iPhone later in the year when the next model comes along with better bluetooth etc.

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[info]strangedave
2009-04-06 03:24 pm UTC (link)
The main thing with the iPhone is probably the software update, that will go on existing phones anyway. Hardware changes are unlikely to change functionality much.

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