Phones, particularly flagship phones, are bought and sold on carrier contracts. Some might consider these contracts to be too restricting and in the long run they can even cost you more than purchasing an unlocked phone would but there is one guarantee that comes with a contract-phone; it’s going to work with the network you bought it on.
For a phone that you buy off contract, you know that it supports 2G, 3G, or 4G networks but the marketing for the phone will neglect to mention network compatibility for carriers in different countries, even in the one it is being sold in. It assumes you’re going to check that on your own. Will My Phone Work is a simple and free web app that lets you check the 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE network compatibility for any phone, in any country, on any network so that you don’t end up buying a phone you can’t use.
Visit Will My Phone Work and select the manufacturer of the phone you intend to buy. The list of model lines offered by that manufacturer will then populate. Select the model you want to purchase from that line, and then choose your country and the carrier you want to use. Click Search and wait for the results.
The app explains how to interpret the results though they aren’t hard to understand at a glance. It’s worth mentioning here that before you check if a phone is compatible with a network, check what types of networks a carrier has to offer. If a carrier doesn’t offer say 4G, then the results for that carrier will show that it is not 4G compatible which makes sense. The search results also include network frequencies for the various network speeds that a carrier offers.
