Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge have taken the smartphone world by storm for its design and functionality. The phone is available in almost all the major countries by now. Users have noticed that their handsets have been region locked by Samsung. There is a caution label at the back of the packaging box that warns the user that the handset is region locked. For example, the Indian handset has the sign “Indian sim cards only”.
This means that the handset can only be used with sim cards that are available in the region the phone is sold. In case you inserted a sim card from another region, for example, a European country, the phone will refuse to work.
Samsung has informed us that it is a means to ensure that the handset will not be sold in the gray market in other regions where the handset is not available where they are generally sold at a much higher price.
But the handset isn’t really region locked. Samsung has also informed us that you can go globe-trotting with this phone and use sim cards in whatever country you reside in the future. All you have to do is insert the sim card of the native region where the handset is sold. Use the phone for about 5 mins and make a few phone calls and the handset will remove the region lock by itself thereby unlocking the phone to use used in any part of the world.
This is a good strategy from Samsung to stop the gray market sellers from illegally profiting by shipping the phone to other regions where the handset is officially unavailable. To make the phone work, native region sim card has to be inserted. But to do that, the box has to be opened and once it is opened, the buyer isn’t inclined to buy the device thereby discourages such sellers.
Clever thinking Samsung.
