[johnnygood]

It's not surprising that they've sold so many. The Galaxy S seems to be the first Android device that the maker hasn't gone the exclusive route. In the US, yes, they did rename it and make minute changes for different carriers, but its substantially the same phone released at mostly the same time.

It's about time that my choice in phone didn't dictate the carrier I'm tied to. Samsung gives me that choice in a way that Motorola makes me tied to Verizon, Apple makes me tied to AT&T and HTC ties me to a various carrier depending on which model of their's I want.

I was really hoping he Galaxy S line would succeed even if just to prove that you can have a non-exclusive phone that's a big seller.

[cletus]

The real villain there is the balkanized (and, quite frankly, medieval) nature of US cellular infrastructure.

[jedbrown]

If you want 3G in the US, then your choice of phone ties you to a carrier. I own a Vibrant (off contract) and although I can use it with any carrier when in Europe, I couldn't leave T-mobile because the 3G radio won't work with other US carriers. (I'm happy with T-mo, but that's not the point.)

[jmillikin]

I have an unlocked Vibrant, and it works well on AT&T's 3G network. Generally it's AT&T phones that don't work well with others, since they actually disable non-AT&T frequency bands.

[jedbrown]

Interesting, all the specs I've seen say it only supports UMTS Band I (2100, Europe) and IV (1700 "AWS", US T-mobile). You'd think they would have mentioned that it also supports band II (1900, AT&T). I just ran a fresh search and came up with this page which supports your claim, but it's absurd not to list it anywhere else: http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/faqs_view_us.js...

[nradov]

Only Sprint has the keyboard version of the Galaxy S, which is a major change.