Samsung's region SIM lock policy on phones- the most absurd thing ever?

So it recently has been discovered that Samsung has implemented a new policy with its mobile phones requiring the devices to be locked to a specific region and only SIM cards from those regions can be used in those devices. A few people who have purchased the Galaxy Note 3 have noticed the folowing labels on the boxes that their phones came in.

Unfortunately what this means is that if you purchase a Samsung device in say Europe you can not use SIM cards from carriers outside that region. Samsung Germany has apparently already responded to this issue stating it effects all phones sold after July 2013 and is applied to Galaxy S2, S3, S4, Note 2 and 3 models. 

While the geographic regions are quite large with Europe covering all of Europe and the American region covering Canada, the U.S, Mexico and all of Latin and South America this means that purchasing a phone from another region to use outside that region won't work. 

Samsung will allow the device to be unlocked to be used in a different region if its brought to one of their service centers for free but thats not the point here. Currently none of the other OEMs (BlackBerry, HTC, LG, Motorola, Apple, etc) have any similar policies on the purchase of their phones. 

What exactly is Samsung attempting to do with this policy? Are they trying to control the market of international devices being sold globally or is this Samsung's way of forcing customers to purchase devices from their specific area. In the case of the Galaxy S4 and Note 3 depending on which area or country you live in determines which version of those devices you get. In the case of the Galaxy S4, there are three versions of that phone; one with a Snapdragon 600, one with a Exynos 5 Octa processor and in some markets a LTE-Advanced model with a Snapdragon 800 chipset. Depending on your market you get one of the three versions of that phone. The Same applies for the just announced Galaxy Note 3 as currently there are two versions; one with the Exynos 5 Octa and one with a Snapdragon 800. 

As of right now XDA is unsure of if this region lock can be cracked without Samsung because its completely different from a SIM lock some carriers put on phones. You can view the XDA thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=45908977#post45908977

I personally have been a huge fan of Samsung and have owned numerous phones, a tablet and heck im writing this post using a Samsung laptop but hearing news of this region lock has made me reconsider my thoughts on Samsung. They are a great company, offer amazing products but as of lately ever since they decided to have 3 CEOs running their corporate end of things they have made a ton of bad decisions that have hurt them. Galaxy S4 sales have not been that strong due to the fact Samsung offers multiple versions of it, they lost a considerable amount of money this year when market annalists downgraded the value of the company due to potential weak sales. I just don't get why Samsung would enforce such a ludicrous policy on their phones. Just yesterday I had checked out the Galaxy Note 3 and considered buying it but after learning of this policy im not sure if I want to. I have reached out to Samsung for a comment on this ridiculous policy and ill provide an update if I get an answer. ~Mathew  

UPDATE: Android Central discovered Samsung's region lock policy isn't as bad as everyone originally thought. While the devices are locked to a specific region once they are activated with a valid SIM card from that region the lock is released. 

Samsung has also released a statement about the controversial policy. 

"In order to provide customers with the optimal mobile experience in each region including customer care services, Samsung has incorporated the ‘regional SIM lock’ feature into Galaxy Note 3 devices. The product is only compatible with a SIM-card issued from a mobile operator within the region identified on the sticker of the product package. When the device is activated with a SIM card issued from the other region, the device may be automatically locked until it is released at the dedicated service centre.Once a device is activated normally, the regional SIM lock is automatically released. Users can enjoy the roaming service as usual and can use other region’s SIM card when travelling. The regional SIM lock has been applied to the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S4 devices through a software update in selective markets. The regional SIM lock does NOT affect the device’s features and performance. Users can continue to enjoy all the advanced features of our products."

IFA 2013

So this week in Berlin, Germany was IFA, a consumer electronics show that is similar to CES but focuses on products geared towards Europe. This week several key players in the mobile electronics industry revealed new products. In this post we'll take a brief look at these amazing products

First we will start with Samsung, on Wednesday Samsung held its usual IFA Unpacked event where the 3rd generation Galaxy Note smartphone or "Phablet" if you prefer was announced.
Images bellow: Galaxy Note 3 

The Galaxy Note 3 features a 5.7 inch full HD Super AMOLED display, depending on what region you live in either a 1.9 ghz Exynos 5 Octa CPU or a Snapdragon 800 CPU clocked at 2.3 ghz. the device comes with 3GB of RAM and either 32 or 64 GB of onboard storage with an microSD expansion slot. The Note 3 comes with a rear facing 13 megapixel camera that on some versions is capable of recording video in 4K (yes thats right 4K!), it has also a 2 megapixel front facing camera for video chatting. Android 4.3 ships on the device along with Samsung's TouchWiz UI on top of it (which you might like or extremely dislike). The Galaxy Note 3 comes with of course the familiar S Pen but introduces a whole slew of new features and software with it. (ill go more in-depth in a future post)

Galaxy Gear 

So in addition to the Note 3, Samsung announced two other products. One of them is the Galaxy Gear. This is Samsung's first smartwatch and its meant to be a companion for your Galaxy device. At first support for the watch will only be available on the Note 3 but Samsung says that future software updates to the Galaxy S3, S4  and Note 2 will enable support. Non-Samsung phones will also be supported in the future as well. 

Images below: Galaxy Gear 

The Galaxy Gear features a 1.63 inch Super AMOLED display, a single-core 800 mhz processor and 512 mb of RAM.There is a 1.9 megapixel camera in the strap.The Galaxy Gear uses bluetooth 4.0 low energy to pair up with your smartphone and it can display messages, notifications as well as receive and make calls via your phone. The watch also has a small selection of apps that can be downloaded onto it. 

Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition 

The final product Samsung announced during its unpacked event is a brand new version of the Galaxy Note 10.1 inch tablet that was released last year. The new Note 10.1 improves on everything last year's model had to offer. (I used last year's model for several months and I have to commend Samsung on the amazing job they did with the new model because it fixes all of the complaints i had with it.)

Images below: Note 10.1

The Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition comes with a 10.1 inch WQXGA Super Clear LCD display (2560 X 1600) It has a 1.9 ghz Exynos 5 Octa CPU with 3GB of RAM. Android 4.3 ships on board along with TouchWiz. The device has an 8 megapixel rear facing camera with flash and a 2 megapixel camera on the front. Like Samsung's Galaxy Tab 3 line it also has a physical home button and capacitive back and menu buttons for Android controls. Like its smaller brother the Note 3, this device ships with all new S Pen functionality. 

Okay so now to move away from Samsung, lets talk about Sony and the new Xperia  Z1 cameraphone.

Previously known by its code name the Honami, the Xperia Z1 brings the best qualities the Xperia Z and Z Ultra phones have to offer into one device. 

Images below: Xperia Z1 courtesy of PhoneArena 

The Xperia Z1 features a 5 inch full HD display with Sony's TRILUMINOUS screen tech that first appeared on the Z Ultra. It features a 2.2 ghz quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU with 2GB of RAM and it has 16 gb of internal storage along with a MicroSD card slot. Android 4.2.2 ships with the device along with Sony's UI. The main feature of this phone is its camera. the Z1 features a 20.7 megapixel Exmor RS sensor with a 27mm wide angle lense and F 2.0 Aperture. This phone should be capable of taking some amazing pictures with that camera and oh yeah like the Xperia Z and Z Ultra its waterproof! 

In addition to the Xperia Z1, Sony also introduced two attachable cameras that can be clipped onto any smartphone, giving it the same high quality imaging experience you would find on Sony's cameras. 

The DSC-QX100 Offers Carl Zeiss optics and Sony's amazing imaging technology in a 35 mm 3.6x Optical zoom lens with F1.8 Aperture

The DSC-QX10 comes with a Sony G Lens with 10X Optical Zoom that Sony says should vastly expand your smartphone's potential 

These camera's use Sony's BIONZ imaging processor which Sony promises should deliver accurate color, rich tones with minimal noise 

To move away from Sony, Asus also made several product announcements at IFA 2013. Among the devices where two new FonePads, several tablets and a computer that dual boots Android and Windows 8. ill briefly touch on each 

Fonepad Note 6

This device features a 6 inch full HD display, a Intel Atom Z2580 dual-core CPU with 2GB of RAM and 16GB  or 32GB of internal Storage with a MicroSD card slot. The device also features a 8 megapixel rear camera and a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera. It comes with Android 4.2.2 and has a Stylus much like a device from a competitor I mentioned earlier. 

Image courtesy of PhoneArena 

FonePad 7 

Asus marketed this device as being a Phablet but really its a tablet with phone capability. The device has a 7 inch 1280 x 800 display and runs on the older Intel Z2560 CPU clocked at 1.6 GHZ and it offers less RAM than its 6" brother (the amount is not specified but im going to guess its 1GB) The device ships with Android 4.2 and comes with 8,16, or 32GB of internal storage. It offers a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 1.2 megapixel front camera. The device is intended to be affordable. 

Image courtesy of PhoneArena 

ASUS MeMO Pad 8 & 10 

Asus introduced two affordable tablets, the MeMo Pad 8 and 10. Both of these tablets come with 720P displays, a 1.6 ghz quad-core chipset with 1GB of RAM and Android 4.2. The MeMO Pad 8 comes with 8gb of internal storage and a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 1.2 megapixel front camera. The MeMO Pad 10 comes with 16 gb of storage and only a 2 megapixel rear shooter along with a 1.2 megapixel front shooter. 

Images courtesy of PhoneArena

ASUS Transformer Book Trio 

Of all of the devices ASUS announced at IFA, the most interesting of them was the Transformer Book Trio. The Transformer Book Trio is a device that comes as a tablet with an attachable keyboard dock. The device has a 11.6 inch 1080 x 1920 IPS display and weighs 35.27 ounces. The most interesting feature this device has it dual boots Android and Windows 8. 

Image courtesy of PhoneArena 

Now how the ability to dual boot OSes works is when the device is being used solely as a tablet, its running Android. The tablet itself has a dual-core 1.6 ghz Intel Atom Z2760 processor with 2 gb of RAM. It also comes with a 5 megapixel camera on the rear.  When the device is attached to its keyboard dock it runs a full version of Windows 8. The keyboard dock has its own hardware necessary to run Windows which includes 4GB of RAM and a Intel I7 Haswell processor and 1TB of storrage. The keyboard dock interestingly though can be hooked up to a external display to function as a PC. 

ACER Liquid S2 

Finally the last device i want to touch on that was announced at IFA is the Acer Liquid S2. Acer didnt have a huge presence at IFA but this device caught my attention because like the Galaxy Note 3 it can record video at 4K resolution. The device features Android 4.2.2 with Acer's custom UI running on top of it. Its powered by a 2.2qhz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU with an Adreno 330 GPU and backed by 2GB of RAM. It has a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera that is capable of recording video at 4K resolution. The device has a 6 inch 1920 x1080 IPS display and a 3300 mah battery. 

Image courtesy of PhoneArena 

So that about wraps up the major product announcements from IFA 2013. Sure there were others but these were the most significant. IFA this year i found to be more interesting than CES was and now we wait till CES 2014. I appologize for the lack of updates to this blog as myself and Sabareesh have been quite busy lately. My next post will be about the Galaxy Note 3 and a indepth look into its features. I may also choose to talk about my thoughts on the Note 3 and the direction Samsung is taking its mobile business. I will try to have that up soon. -Mathew