Screen Savers Depot

What is an UNLOCKED phone and FIRMWARE?

I've heard a lot of talk about unlocking cellphones and switching its firmware from the provider's to the manufacturer's. I'm going to get th new Sony Ericsson w580 with Rogers and I would like to get this figured out before I make the deal. What exactly is unlocking? Does it mean that it unlocks all the features that the provider has hidden? And I've heard that the w580 from Rogers will use not Sony Ericsson's default firmware but Roger's own firmware which lacks many cool features such as mp3 ringtones, flash themes and screensavers. Is this true for a lot of providers? How do I switch the firmware to SE's, preferably for free?

Public Comments

1. an unlocked phone means you can use them with any provider such as cingular, verison ext. firmware is the programming it runs on
2. unlocking, its just that you can put any SIM into your phone, and it work :)