I am trying to understand the importance of including carrier information for cellphone listing

Hello,

The Unlocked category of devices here on Swappa are for factory unlocked devices bought directly from OEMs (Google, Apple, Samsung, etc). A lot of buyers want devices not bought through a carrier but from the OEM.

If a device was bought through a carrier, Swappa requires it be listed in the carrier device category like T-Mobile. It will need to be paid off but it doesn't have to be unlocked from the carrier.

For android devices carrier branded phones are different than factory unlocked phones even if they have been network unlocked. A lot of times the hardware and software are different. For example, factory unlocked phones usually support gsm & cdma where carrier phones usually only support whichever the carrier uses. They also have bloatware that can't be removed and system updates will have to come from the carrier even after the device is unlocked. It matters to some people b/c they usually get their updates later than the factory unlocked version and aren't typically allowed to participate in developer previews or stable beta testing of the new android version.

IPhone use Alison