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There shouldn't be any issues and the phone should work well enough in India. Just to make sure, check the operating bands of the phone you are seeking to purchase and match it against those in use in India.

Most of the Samsung phones will need to be activated at the home country, by inserting a SIM card and making a call for around 30 minutes. Many Samsung phones bought from the UAE are locked to their home country networks and will not work in India unless its unlocked by activating in UAE. There are some hidden ways to unlock the phones also. Do check this before bringing the phone to India.

BHPians - Looking for a wireless earphone.

My requirements are as follows

• Call quality - I take a lot of calls through out the day and this would also double up as a Bluetooth earphone while driving. Though my car has Bluetooth calling functionality but receiving a call means the music stops and everyone else hears what the person on the other side says which disturbs others in the cars. I do a lot of long distance drives and it helps if gmaps directions are routed through Bluetooth earphones as well. Less disturbing for others. Also the call quality matters and the person on other side should be able to hear things clearly. Earlier was using a Sony wireless earphones and though it was a costly one folks on the other side mostly complained that voice is either too low or muffled. Would usually be taking calls in silent environment so noise cancellation is not a must but good to have
  
• Music - Aptx/Aptx HD support a must. I have used earphones which have Aptx support and ones which don't have and the difference is pretty much there
  
• Google Assistant Support - There should be single button or voice support to enable Google assistant. Makes it easier to place call than taking out the phone every time one makes a call
  
• Multipoint support - Should be able to connect to 2 devices simultaneously
  
• Call/SMS alert - The earphones/neckband should buzz if there are any alerts. I have used earphones with/without this support and it is so much convenient. One can put the phone ringer or mute/vibrate mode and still get to know when there are any alerts
  
• Water Resistant - Some sort of water/splash/sweat protection should be there. I don't intent to use it in rain or shower but at least should be resistant to accidental spills or light rain just in case
  
• Mute - Control to mute during calls from the earphone itself

Budget is around 6-8 K and have short listed Oneplus Bullets 2 Wireless.

Going by the reviews what I figured out

• There is no mention of going on mute while calls from the earphone itself
• No noise cancellation active or passive. Noise isolation is there which seems to be pretty good
• Not for bass lovers and I am not too keen on the pumped up bass on budget earphones. Makes music sound unreal. I like balanced output more
• Got fast charging and multipoint connectivity
• Got AptX HD support and Bluetooth version 5
• Battery last 12-14 hrs which is great

Reviews if anyone has used it or any better alternatives in the price range. Noise cancellation will be a nice to have feature but not a must.

I have seen this activation by local SIM card (in the country of purchase), but making calls for around 30 mins? Not sure if that is a required to activate the phone.

Its not necessary in all countries, a 5 minute call on home country network is enough to activate the phone in UAE/Saudi Arabia. Even if you don't activate the phone in the home country, you can bring it here and unlock it using secret codes available with the local mobile shops. You may lose your international warranty if you do this.

I am too contemplating picking up a Note 9 from UAE costing only 40k INR for the UAE version. Is there any feature that would not work in India? I will activate/region unlock the phone by using a local SIM. But will there be any other disadvantage?

For more than 2 years now, I've been using a Note 8 purchased in the USofA. Also my BIl has a Note 8 purchased in India. So it has given me a good reference for comparison. My observations:

Updates
OTA updates will follow the home country schedule. India gets updates faster than US and hence I got updates slower than my BIL
Local Languages
Initially I didn't have Kannada (only Hindi was available) option for more than a year. After that in the last update, I got it
Region specific Samsung Apps
I've US specific Samsung apps and India specific apps aren't available. I don't use any of them and hence it's not a problem whatsoever.

Other than these pretty much everything remains same. As you can see, none of these is a deal breaker IMO. We have to just make sure that we activate/unlock the device with a local sim

Most of the native Samsung Apps will be UAE based. Its not a major issue as its almost the same. You will also get the updates as per UAE timeline.

The biggest deal breaker for a Samsung is that Samsung Pay will not work with Indian credit or debit cards! You will only be able to use it with Samsung Pay's UAE partner banks. HDFC comes up with 10x or 5x reward points for their cards while using SPay at POS terminals. Other than that I guess everything will be alright.

I had written here earlier about my love-hate relationship with the MI A2. It had drowned in a bucket of water a month ago. So when I saw the A2 on sale for 10K during the recent sale, I thought I'd replace my wife's secondary phone - Honor 9 lite (which she hates) - with a A2.

I got it for Rs 5300 after exchanging the 9 lite. The phone arrived 2 days ago. I set it up yesterday and after setting it up upgraded to Android Pie. But curiously after a few hours it again showed a new update with a size of more than a gig, which appeared strange as security updates should not be that big. Anyway I went ahead without giving much thought, but after the update the phone bricked.



On booting it gets stuck in the Android one logo screen and stays like that for about 10 minutes before switching off. I tried going to recovery screen but it still gets stuck in the logo screen. I can get into fastboot mode, but it is pretty useless as the bootloader is locked. I googled and found that this is a common issue with the A2, and there is no way out.

Not having any options left, I raised a replacement request on Amazon who asked for photos of the phone and after verifying, placed a replacement order. Should get a new one sometime next week.

Is it a good practice to keep the bootloader unlocked? I read that Xiaomi does not void your warranty if you did. So are there any drawbacks in keeping the bootloader unlocked? When my Nexus 5X died a couple of years ago, I faced the same issue - I could enter the fastboot mode but could not flash a ROM because the bootloader was locked, and hence had to trash it.

Keeping the Bootloader unlocked is not recommended as any 3rd party software upon installation could make some changes unknown to you in the bootloader without your permission!

Best is to keep it locked to avoid such mess ups. There are ways to open the bootloader before flashing a new ROM and this should be followed !

Cheers

Research carefully and keep backups.

I have an M1. Once you unlock the boot loader and start boring from recovery you are likely to wipe your phone's data. Maybe also you can't get OTA updates... I forget. I get techie when I have a new phone, but it's been a year now and I can't remember.

It's actually on my to-do list. Backup, let the phone wipe itself, get updates and restore. But I lack new-toy motivation.

There is a fastboot command for unlocking, but it will return you an error if "OEM unlocking" option is not enabled in developer options. And that option can be enabled only when the phone is booting up and you have access to the settings app.

Most software issues could be fixed by booting to recovery and flashing a stock ROM. But what happens if the recovery is corrupted - which was what happened to my MI. Usually it is these OTA updates that could mess with the recovery partition. On the odd day when the recovery is also corrupted you would wish you had an unlocked bootloader.
If an unlocked bootloader would prevent me from getting OTA updates, then it is not an option for me. I was thinking that only a modified (custom) ROM or a custom recovery would prevent it from getting an OTA.

I don't know for sure. Didn't mean to spread FUD!

It is true. Unlocking Bootloader disables OTA updates.

Unlocking Bootloader is best if you wanna experience different ROMs.

Caution: One incorrect step and you'll have a brick, so beware, read, re-read the instructions and enjoy modding the mobile with Turbos, Superchargers and what not! :)