Will windows 10 unbrand devices?

[Jacques7]

Hello everyone.
I'm pretty much a noob here and I'm curious about Windows 10 mobile. I'm about to buy a Lumia 1520 (always loved the phone but had a 920) and sadly the unicorn (1520.3) is not available anymore (at least not brand new) so I might end up getting a AT&T RM-940, I am currently on Preview for Devs with my 920 and will want to try windows 10 for sure.

Does anybody know if the windows 10 (either the current preview or the final release) will debrand the phone to get rid of AT&T ROM restrictions? Most people tell me that internet sharing and some bands don't work on the AT&T variant. Or what if I install Windows 10 preview and then try to flash a RM-938 ROM on it? Has anyone tried that? Any hope it could work?

Thanks in advance.

 

[michael nabil01]

No it will not. an at&t phone will stay at&t after w10m. My Lumia 1520 stayed at&t after upgrading and my Verizon HTC one m8 stayed Verizon.and the bands that are not available are not available because of hardware. Note : At&t Lumia 1520 doesn't have wireless charging

 

[Jacques7]

Thanks for the reply.
It's a shame because I was hoping that could allow users to flash back to a ROM without AT&T restrictions (like internet sharing) I wasn't interested in trying to change bands LTE because I know those are determined by the hardware specs, i read the band that differ is a T-Mo one which can be modified with field test menu.
It's really a shame that MS (knowing that carriers add such restrictions) don't try to make free ROMS you can have flashed on the device.

Thanks again for the response Mike!

 

[EspHack]

well in some rare cases you could unlock gsm bands with firmware, specially the "baseband" or radio drivers, I remember some nexus phone getting LTE with a software trick, its hardware was capable of a single LTE band but it was disabled by the manufacturer, so lets say on our case for example the lumia 928 has LTE band 700mhz and 2100/1700 but only 700 is enabled, why? cause Verizon... they said they were going to roll out updates for "AWS" support to that phone and the S4 and it never came, so if we ever get a strong hacker community we could make the 928 work with those bands

 

[michael nabil01]

Thee is one or two band that I enabled in the field test menu on Lumia 1520 so I can confirm that you can do that. I wasn't able to find a rom to rebrand it though.

 

[Jacques7]

Well yeah I've seen the field test menu thing too, TMobile users did that to get a band missing for them. Still it's a shame we can't debrand the 1520 like it was possible with the 920, ATT got away with it this time :unhappy:

 

[EspHack]

I would love to use that field test thing on my 928, but the codes ##3282 or ##3282# don't do anything

 

[Jacques7]

My point exactly, if MS is gonna handle updates directly for W10 they should allow us to flash original ROMs to our phones so we get the OS just as MS created it and not keep a limited version modified and restricted by carriers...

 

[rhapdog]

My point exactly, if MS is gonna handle updates directly for W10 they should allow us to flash original ROMs to our phones so we get the OS just as MS created it and not keep a limited version modified and restricted by carriers...

Agreed. I would like to see Windows 10 Mobile ROMs available for the Windows Device Recovery Tool that will allow us to firmware flash our phones for each variant out there to a pure Microsoft experience without anything disabled.

 

[Jacques7]

Let's just hope the insiders told MS this so our voices can be heard, otherwise we're gonna be stuck forever with ATT ROMs :unhappy::angry::unhappy:

 

[MP3Mike]

Unless you just buy an unbranded/unlocked phone. I suspect Microsoft can't release unbranded ROMs for branded phones, the phones belong to/are controlled by the carrier, and as such only the carrier can approve new ROMs for them.

That is why I like the new unlocked 950 and 950XL. Now I just wish they would get the VVM problem for dual SIM devices resolved.

 

[rhapdog]

Sorry, been rather busy and out-of-pocket with the holidays.

Just to be clear, there is now only ONE difference between carrier branded and factory unlocked: Firmware updates.

All updates for the OS will come through unobstructed. However, firmware updates will need carrier approval if you have a carrier branded phone.

How much will this affect people? Probably not much, as firmware updates at this stage are mainly to fix bugs in the firmware, and the carriers will usually approve one or 2 of those, which should be all that should be required. Also, new phones sold by Microsoft are generally only being sold through carriers that are being helpful to Microsoft with this issue.