The other day I went to BestBuy to pre-order a Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, only to find out that they don’t take pre-orders for T-Mobile. But they do take pre-orders from AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Needless to say, it wasn’t a pleasant experience since I thought BestBuy was the first place to take pre-orders. Upon coming back to my house, I placed an order for Galaxy S6 online at T-Mobile’s website.
This morning I got up and received an e-mail from T-Mobile that my Galaxy S6 has been shipped and arriving by tomorrow! I am glad I didn’t have to go through BestBuy’s pre-order, which they won’t be shipping until April 7th anyways. But it is always a box of chocolates when it comes to carriers and Samsung Galaxy release dates.
As far as carriers go, you may want to avoid AT&T or Verizon if you want to root and install custom ROMs. AT&T and Verizon phones come with a locked bootloader, meaning it may be impossible to root it. FYI, AT&T and Verizon Note 4 phones still have no root method due to the locked bootloaders.
I have recently moved most of my lines out of AT&T and Verizon (keeping only one line per carrier just for speed tests) and highly recommend T-Mobile or Sprint if you don’t want to be stuck with a phone you can’t root. Besides that, locked bootloaders mean users cannot install AOSP ROMs (What is AOSP?) like CM12 or CM12.1. A lot of you may be stuck with AT&T and Verizon due to your corporate accounts or perhaps you live in an area where you get bad T-Mobile or Sprint coverage. But if you don’t, it may be a great time to consider switching carriers.
For those of you who live in SF Bay Area where I live, T-Mobile may be the best choice, followed by Sprint. Although AT&T and Verizon does get slightly better coverage, 4G LTE speeds on AT&T and Verizon has been getting worse lately (due to overcrowded network) and T-Mobile and Sprint are really on their comeback wagon with improved speeds/coverage. My T-Mobile 4G LTE speeds now average near 30-40Mbps while my Sprint 4G LTE speeds (on Spark) average near 10-20Mbps.
Overall, T-Mobile is doing a lot of things right lately including cheaper plans and faster Galaxy S6/S6 Edge shipments.
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