Originally Posted by
jmgriffin
I spent the better part of the past 2 weeks researching the best way to upgrade to an iPhone 6. I'm U.S. based and wanted the ability to swap in a foreign SIM when traveling abroad but also wanted to know the cheapest way to purchase the iPhone 6 as soon as possible. I ended up compiling all of the data that I found to try and make an easy to use guide for others considering an upgrade.
Thanks for the summary; I just spent the better part of the last two weeks owning a couple different iPhone 6s and here are a couple observations:
Besides the Spring iPhone; it really doesn't matter which phone you buy. Yep you heard me. I own both the ATT and Verizon version. And, I've used Verizon version on ATT and the ATT version on Verizon. Now, I couldn't get LTE to work on the ATT phone on Verizon, but I understand it is possible. I only had the SIM card in for about 5 minutes and didn't feel like fiddling. But, I had access to the 4G network and could place a call; just with a SIM swap.
ATT will unlock your phone if you buy it outright. It is possible. But, it's a little cumbersome because they will not sell it to you outright. They will sell it to you on an installment plan (aka NEXT) and then you have to pay it off in full as well as submit a request for unlocking. Technically your phone has to be outside the remorse period of 2 weeks; but they forgot to tell me that when I paid off my phone and they went ahead and unlocked it.
Verizon does indeed come SIM unlocked out of the box.
I was able to trade in some iPhone 4s to ATT ($200 credit; ended yesterday) and use the cards to pay off my iPhone 6.
FDW