Unlock your mobile?

[Rawns]

There seem to be a lot of sites that will "unlock" your phone by providing you a code. Not sure how legit these places are, but is there any way to 'self-unlock' your phone which does not involve paying for a code from a 3rd party website?

[AMLinington]

Or paying an obscene '£25 Administration charge' from your provider!

 

From what I've seen, if it's an Android phone, there ARE apps to do it but you need the phone rooted...

 

I have an S3 and found this: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/how-to-unlock-your-samsung-galaxy-s3-50008597/

 

I have an old S2 I might try this on - that way if it dies I can just hock it to Mazuma mobile or something XD

Edited March 19, 2013 by AMLinington

[Rawns]

Or paying an obscene '£25 Administration charge' from your provider!

 

From what I've seen, if it's an Android phone, there ARE apps to do it but you need the phone rooted...

 

I have an S3 and found this: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/how-to-unlock-your-samsung-galaxy-s3-50008597/

 

I have an old S2 I might try this on - that way if it dies I can just hock it to Mazuma mobile or something XD

 

Yea, that too. I know some of these "mobile accessory" stands you see in shopping centers will do it for £10, but ideally I'd rather spend zero on it.

 

It's an HTC Desire HD. I did root my phone and am running a custom ROM.

 

Actually thinking about it, I'm not even sure if my phone is locked! I bought it through Carphone Warehouse as O2 did not see the phone I wanted directly...

Edited March 19, 2013 by Rawns

[AngryTechnician]

O2 usually brand their Android firmware with an O2 logo. Do you remember if your original ROM had an O2 splash screen? If it didn't, there's a good chance it's unlocked already.

[AMLinington]

Might be worth popping in another SIM just to see.

[Rawns]

O2 usually brand their Android firmware with an O2 logo. Do you remember if your original ROM had an O2 splash screen? If it didn't, there's a good chance it's unlocked already.

 

Nope, had no O2 branding at all, all it had were the standard stock HTC apps/widgets. It had none of the generic O2 Apps/Menu entries either. Even the box was O2 free...

 

Sounds promising! Think I'll try and find a SIM card to test in it... just a shame that everyone I know has iPhone 4/5's with mini/micro SIM cards.

[Geoff]

Running a custom rom on an android phone will automatically unlock it. i.e. any operator SIM locks are done in software by the operators branding which obviously gets removed once you wipe the phone (technically this is part of the CSC). Edited March 19, 2013 by Geoff

[Sdrawkcab]

If it is locked, O2 will give you an unlock code for free if you ring them. Only problem is, they can sometimes take a couple of weeks to do so. I gave up waiting for them to give me the code for my HTC Desire in the end and unlocked it using a neat little utility I got from the GiffGaff website. Unfortunately it doesn't look like there's a similar guide for the Desire HD

[Geoff]

There is if you know where to look.

 

HTC Desire SIM-Unlock Utility - xda-developers

[Sdrawkcab]

Running a custom rom on an android phone will automatically unlock it. i.e. any operator SIM locks are done in software by the operators branding which obviously gets removed once you wipe the phone (technically this is part of the CSC).

 

This isn't true (or at least it wasn't for the HTC Desire). I rooted my friends and put Cyanogenmod on it, thinking it would unlock the phone from Vodafone (which it was locked to) but her Orange SIM still wouldn't work. I had to use the utility on the GiffGaff website to unlock it after rooting to get her SIM to work.

[Sdrawkcab]

There is if you know where to look.

 

HTC Desire SIM-Unlock Utility - xda-developers

 

This is the utility I used, but if you read the thread you'll see that it's actually for the HTD Desire and not the HTC Desire HD. I wouldn't reccomend trying this with a phone it doesn't expressly say it supports, as I've bricked more than one android handset doing stuff like this.

[jmak]

Anything you buy from Carphone Warehouse will almost certainly be unlocked. When I wa buying my payg phone there I was debating whether to pay the extra £10 to have the phone on the network I was already using. The salesman advised me not to bother as any SIM would work. The last time I bought a phone was October time and the first time I came across it was about 9 years ago. Possibly different for contract phones , but worth a try.

[Geoff]

Normally when you S-OFF a HTC phone (in order to change the bootloader) then you will unlock it as part of that.