will Fido locked phones work also? Or do you have to unlock them?

Phones that are locked to Fido will not work with SO. Those phones must be unlocked.

Btw, will Fido locked phones work also? Or do you have to unlock them?

if you have a SO sim, can you buy PC airtime to refill it? And vice versa?

No.

Also can you use a Nokia locked on Rogers network with PC sim? What about SO sim? Is it both?

Yes, yes and yes.

Answer to other question is NO! You must buy minutes at 7-11 to use with your SO sim and the same for Petro Canada.

The only differences are that you can use your PetroPoints to buy a phone or airtime with PetroCan, while 7-11 occasionally has some special offers like a $75 off a phone when you buy $100 of airtime. Rumour has it that their $75 off offer will be coming back in the summer, so when it does, I will be taking advantage of it and getting a phone upgrade for free.

Occasionally one company will have a special offer that another company doesn't have.

Another difference is that it seems PetroCanada usually gets new phones earlier than 7-11. They are now offering the Nokia 2630 and I have not heard of 7-11 offering it as of yet.

If getting to a 7-11 location will be a huge hassle for you, then go with PetroCanada. If not, then get the $50 ($75-$25 rebate) Nokia 1600 at 7-11. Or flip a coin, they're the same service provider.

Kaylya said:

So like most here I want a cheap phone to occaisonally make short calls while on the go.

Petro Canada's deal looks to be better than 7-11's at the moment ($40 for the cheapest phone vs $50 for 7-11; also, while neither is actually super convenient to me, I go by a Petro Can more often).

It will be very difficult to find the $40 phone as it has been discontinued and no one is restocking it.

The 2610 (at $60) was difficult enough to find as well. I visited 4 different stations before finding one. That station manager told me he's not even able to get more stock for the 2610.

PetroCanada and 7-11 are run by the same company and last time I looked they have the identical long-distance policy.

Only real difference is that PetroCanada's airtime vouchers, with the exception of $100, are only good for 180 days.

If you drive a lot and use PetroCanada than they have one advantage in that you can use your Petro Points to buy air time.

Petro Canada's deal looks to be better than 7-11's at the moment ($40 for the cheapest phone vs $50 for 7-11; also, while neither is actually super convenient to me, I go by a Petro Can more often).

So, the one difference I've seen so far, other than the handsets offered, is that Petro Canada's top ups last 180 days other than the $100 one; 7-11's last 365 days. 180 days on top ups is fine.

I don't see any details of how roaming works with Petro Canada. Since I would rarely do this, small differences in cost aren't overly important; I just want to be sure that I am able to make and recieve calls while I am travelling within Canada. I assume they both don't do any sort of international roaming.

Also, are there any other differences I should know about?