In one of the most incredibly stupid moves of any manufacturer in recent years, it appears that Samsung has integrated region locking on their new line of Galaxy Note 3 mobile phones. Yes that’s right, they have locked the handset so if you travel outside of your region (i.e. USA, Europe, Asia etc) you will NOT be able to use a local SIM card to make cheaper calls and save on roaming. [Update: Gigaom reports on a follow up from Samsung Germany which poses as many questions as it answers. Something still fishy about this.]

To say this is incredibly dumb is an understatement, but we will just say right now, that if this is the case, we absolutely advise you NOT TO BUY this phone – or any other handset from any manufacturer – which comes out with this feature installed.

Thankfully there are plenty of great alternatives out in the market, so no-one should have to bow down to this sort of nasty tactic, which will ensure that your phone and data costs will be hugely more expensive when you travel than they should be. Apparently the phone locks you out of the networks completely except for emergency calls, which is disgusting.

So vote with your wallets folks, and stay away from Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phones (and maybe future Samsung products, who knows) until this issue goes away or the company does. [Via Gigaom]