<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Zvi Grauer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:zvi.grauer@gmail.com" target="_blank">zvi.grauer@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">I am a happy user of Samsung mini with android, and golan telecom service. However, my wife is looking for a better phone (we live abroad in the process of moving to Israel), and was told to look for refurbished older models of Apple's iPhone - without a SIM (chip) in the US for the best prices.<div>
<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Be advised that some phones (this is especially true for Apple products in the US, with their AT&T deal, I think...) are locked to the original Cellular Carrier that sold them to the customer; As such you'll not be able to use them in any other carrier, unless you break them, a task you may, or may not be, successful in. If you're not successful, then it would be a pricey paperweight...<br>
</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div></div><div>Any advice which model is most cost effective, and what technology it has to have in order to be used in Israel (GSM, G3, G4, what not - I don't know what all this means, quite frankly)?</div>
<div><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The 2nd issue is the frequencies; Not all companies work with all of them. <br><br>Not all companies provide 2G (everything that sits on Pelephone's infrastructure - Pelephone themselves, Rami Levy, HOT Mobile, Cellact - will not work on < 3G phones)<br>
<br></div><div>See list here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_country_code#I">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_country_code#I</a> (and verify with other sources for the carrier you finally select; I have seen errors there regarding Golan, which I fixed...)<br>
<br></div><div>What it mostly means (for you, as a user) - the higher the "generation", the higher maximum bandwidth you can get with the cell tower; That does not mean that a network with "3.9G" will necessarily give you better Internet performance than a 3.5G network - it really depends on how much BW they get to their cells, and how many customers (ab)use it besides you...<br>
<br></div><div>Old 2G phones probably have better reception than the new smartphones, due to usage of the sub-1GHz spectrum. Rumor has it, that those frequencies penetrate walls better... they also definitely have a much longer battery life, due to the huge colorful LCD screens power consumption... but unfortunately, 2G won't be here forever; Eventually carriers will want to clear this spectrum for other stuff, given the very low amount of subscribers still using it - something that already happened in the US, and I do not see a reason for it not to happen in Israel.<br>
</div><div><br></div><div>HTH,<br><br></div>-- Shimi<br></div></div></div>