Let’s face it, locked second-hand phones are cheaper, and unlocking is so easy

I don’t like spending money. Some might call me “tight”, but I’d rather call it “sensible”.

My wife, for example, somehow ended up with a £59 per-month package for her Samsung phone. She had far too much data included and she somehow got Spotify plus mobile phone insurance added into the mix too. After a “robust conversation”, I’ve now switched her across to a Virgin Mobile deal for £12 per month, and she strangely gets more data too.

Switching networks is now super easy. Just send a text message to your current network and give the provided code to the new network. Bosh. Done.

Less than £300 for this locked iPhone X on eBay

Also, if you’ve come to the end of your contract and you’ve paid everything you owe, you can usually unlock your phone easily by merely asking your current network to do it. They usually won’t charge you for this either. However, if you got your phone from somewhere else – eBay, Gumtree, Shpock etc – you could find yourself buying a phone which is locked to a specific network. Plus, because you’re not the person named on the original contract, you can’t get it unlocked for free.

Cheap reconditioned phones on MusicMagpie

If you’re looking around for a used smartphone, you’ll find that locked phones are generally cheaper to buy. This is because you’ll need to do a bit of extra work to get it unlocked so that you can use it on the network of your choice.

So, when I was buying an a reconditioned iPhone 7 for my son, I spotted quite a few really cheap ones that were locked. Fast forward to today and I’m at it again, this time looking for an iPhone X. If you have a good look around, you can get one for less than £380, however, that’s for a locked one. The next step is to simply hunt out a decent company who will Unlock iPhone X handsets.

Usually you’ll just need a few things…

1 – Details of the network that the phone is locked to.
2 – The IMEI number (which you can get by simply dialling *#06# on your dial-pad)
3 – Payment.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll receive an unlock code which just needs putting into the phone. Don’t forget, if you’re getting an Apple phone, this is just the network unlock code. If your iPhone is locked to a previous owners iCloud account, you will require an iCloud Unlock prior to unlocking your device.