I have done both. If you buy it outright even from a carrier (I neglected to mention this part) the carrier lock is supposed to be lifted immediately. I have had to call once to get it done, but on another it was off as soon as I activated it.
Hold the phone! pun intended.
If Verizon gives me $285 or anything more than Apple on a trade deal and I pay the balance in cash, are you claiming they lift the lock too? That's not what I read on line.
OK on the locked iphone to Verizon for 60days only. That's good news for travelers. But you only get the great trade deal better than Apple with a more expensive monthly contract.
I wasn't talking about a list price sale. I was referring to deals and time payment contracts comparing Apple's deal and trade in with the carriers.
Some people in the forums have pushed the idea that the carriers give you a better deal than buying from Apple direct. But those deals all seem to have hidden gotchas when you read the fine print.
Verizon offers two levels of deals. One for customers on an a la carte bandwidth 5G contract and the poor one for customers with the unlimited 5G contract. Time payment plan is for 36 months. No deals for cash deal. When I checked on the 14 Pro Max several months ago Verizon said the discount would be clawed back if I left Verizon for another carrier.
I have the a la carte now for 4 numbers. 2 AW and 2 iphones. My monthly is $127 including taxes. Not sure if that plan sticks when I upgrade but we'll see. We don't use a lot of bandwidth and I recall what I don't use one month gets added to next month so I'm always working on a higher balance.