DON'T buy a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 If You Travel much

Samsung has crippled their brand new Galaxy Note 3 by adding region-locking, helping to make buyers of unlocked units trying to use it in geographies outside of the region in which it was bought subject to exorbitant roaming costs.

"We desire to make our clients aware about particular functionality limitation concerning SIM cards on the Note 3. The Note 3 will operate with any kind of UK or European SIM card." UK "professional provider of mobile technology products" Clove notes on its Note 3 order page.

"If you travel internationally (outside of the Europe [sic]) as well as usually insert a local SIM card when in the country," they continue, "the Note 3 will NOT have the ability to use the local network. It will loose [sic] all mobile connectivity with the exception for emergency calls."

Due to this region-locking, Clove notes, if as an example you're in the US and want to use a US-based SIM card, you'll be S.O.L. when you would like to make a voice call, send a text message, or perhaps make a mobile data connection - you'll be limited to Wi-Fi only.

Clove at the same time gives a photo in a blog article of a sticker on their "European Model" stock of the Galaxy Note 3 that details which model's geographical limitations:

At least Pope Francis would have no difficulty using a Note 3 if he travels to F.Y.R.O.M.

As GigaOm correctly notes, this region-locking is doubly troubling because of the truth that the Note 3 is a GSM-based mobile phone, and the "G" is "GSM" stands for "global".

Not to Samsung, it seems.

While it's probable that carriers leaned on Samsung to add such a "feature" in an effort to protect their roaming-rate extortion revenue streams, such global cooperation seems unlikely to us here at The Reg. As an alternative, we're betting that Sammy is much more interested in preserving its ability to control price differentials in different geographies.

We've questioned Samsung to confirm or deny Clove's thought as well as to describe their thought behind this move, but we've yet to hear back from them.

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