Samsung S23 Plus US version Unlocked in India

[Absolute_Zero]

Hi all, I was planning to buy a Samsung S23 plus US version unlocked from Amazon thanksgiving sale. My relative will be ordering it there and getting it to India. I saw a lot of posts on different sites and communities saying that there's region locking in US version which won't allow me to use international SIM card. I also saw posts where people said it was fine. Can anyone give me some information on this ? Have any of you bought a S23/S23+ US version unlocked, and using it in India currently, with Indian SIM ?

Checkout my comments at the end in this post regarding the same topic with screenshots of what a Samsung support community expert told me about this. Not sure if it's reliable, so asking here to fellow members for more insights.

https://r2.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S/5g-not-supported-in-india/td-p/14917047?src=ShareByUser...

[Jonnavittula]

@Absolute_Zero there is no issue in using a US unlocked version as I myself using a S22 ultra unlocked device from US

[Absolute_Zero]

Oh okay. I saw some posts in which they said that US version unlocked (on Amazon US) and international unlocked are different..? They said that US version is region locked, as in, it works only on SIMs within US, and on other country SIMs. So I was concerned.

[ConnectedNatural]

You have to make sure that you are buying an Unlocked Version of the Mobile.

[Absolute_Zero]

I also talked to some 15+ samsung support experts (my patience is infinite) on the Samsung US website. Almost all of the people I connected with were Samsung pre-sales support peeps. They all said it will work with any SIM. But in between I connected with one member whose title was Customer & Community expert. He said that US version unlocked is still regional locked.
He told me that I have to do two things:
> First use in USA with a US SIM for few minutes and do a 5-6 minutes call on that.
> Then he sent me some instructions to enable some global roaming thing, with some code and stuff.

Does anyone have any insights on these ?

I have taken the screenshots of his conversation as well.

[ConnectedNatural]

You don't have to do any of the aforementioned things when using an Unlocked Version of the phone in India. I am using an S23+ Unlocked Version that I bought in the US and brought to India. There won't be any issues with the mobile network carriers or any others. It will work just like a normal mobile as if you bought it here in India. However, the only issue is that the phone comes with a US build of One UI installed, so apps like Samsung Wallet and other Samsung apps will be based on the US versions. I inquired about this issue with Samsung Support, and they informed me that I won't be able to officially change the build to the Indian Version. But if you really want an Indian build, you can always install it by downloading it from some websites that have these Software Archives. Another issue is that you would only receive the software updates when they are released in the US, as your Software Build is based on that.

[Absolute_Zero]

Ah I see. So Samsung wallet is kinda working ? And are you able to record calls ??

[ConnectedNatural]

Yup, Samsung Wallet is working but you can't use UPI in the Samsung Wallet and you also can't record calls.

[Prashantbgh]

No warranty in India

[Absolute_Zero]

Yes yes, warranty, I'm aware. I was more worried about the network connectivity though.