I'm currently considering signing up for prepaid service with a company that says that I should be able to use any unlocked GSM phone with their service. I'm looking for a website that allows me to search all available phones on the market that support GSM along with a few other criteria (such as supporting 4G and, if still available, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard).
I've found a few websites that allow me to perform this search (e.g. Amazon and PhoneScoop), but the issue I'm encountering is that while many phones support GSM, only a subset of them support GSM in the US, and the sites don't allow differentiating by which portions of the world the GSM on the phone supports.
The best site I could find was GSMArena, which allows me to select which GSM bands I want the phone to support. According to several sites (such as Wikipedia), the 850 and 1900 GSM bands are what are required for US support. So I searched with that restriction and as part of searching, I found the Motorola DROID 4 XT894. However, additional searching on that phone revealed this xda developers forum post which states that even though the hardware supports it, "The ROM itself has a baked-in block for GSM in America."
In summary, is there any way for me to determine which phones I can purchase and expect to work with my new service without spending hours researching each individual phone?
I've found a few websites that allow me to perform this search (e.g. Amazon and PhoneScoop), but the issue I'm encountering is that while many phones support GSM, only a subset of them support GSM in the US, and the sites don't allow differentiating by which portions of the world the GSM on the phone supports.
The best site I could find was GSMArena, which allows me to select which GSM bands I want the phone to support. According to several sites (such as Wikipedia), the 850 and 1900 GSM bands are what are required for US support. So I searched with that restriction and as part of searching, I found the Motorola DROID 4 XT894. However, additional searching on that phone revealed this xda developers forum post which states that even though the hardware supports it, "The ROM itself has a baked-in block for GSM in America."
In summary, is there any way for me to determine which phones I can purchase and expect to work with my new service without spending hours researching each individual phone?
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