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this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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If you were already planning on using a specific carrier, buying a locked phone is cheaper.
Like for a extremely frugal example:
A Samsung Galaxy A15 is $200, a locked version can be as low as $60. Still the same 5 year security updates (presumably, unless the carrier fucks with it).
But if you were gonna use X carrier from the start, then then it doesn't cost you extra. You can still use that cheap plan same as if you BYOD. And it used to unlock in 60 days, so before this policy took effect, you could just switch carriers after 2 months.
A lot of the time it ends up cheaper to shop a separate plan and buy an unlocked device outright.
The major carrier data plans are severely overpriced.