I'm probably not the only old geyser having an IPhone 3G donated to them by their upgrading offspring. Unless it's dead easy to get my Orange PAYG sim to work in it, I'm probably going to decline. Anyone used the "rebel sim" solution?
Whenever I've had to unlock a phone I've found google to be a great help .. but I've not had an iphone to play with yet .. ;)
The donor of the phone can probably get it unlocked before handing it over. If it has been on a contract it is usually free. If it was bought on PAYG, it will cost about =A315. What network is it on?
They are usually locked to a network, not to a specific sim, so if it was on Orange it won't need unlocking (although might be worth doing anyway for future). If it is not on Orange, you might consider switching your number to PAYG on the network that would work.
Once it will accept the SIM, it will just work. The only thing you may have to manually change is that the data settings it installs automatically will be for the special iPhone tariffs. If you change those to the standard data settings for your network, it will use whatever data options your sim has. More specific instructions depend on the network.
Worth accepting even if you decide not to use it - worth at least =A390 if you sell it to CEX!
The final insult Orange delivered to me, before I left them, was wanting= =
to charge to unlock a phone that had been under contract with them for =
several years.
Never will I touch them again.
Many thanks for the advice. I obviously need to find out what network it's on for starters. Why I need to cart something twice as big and twice as heavy around in my pocket to make a phone call I'm not sure. The CEX option may yet come to pass :-)
Yes my thoughts as well, especially given that most of those phones seem to have very poor sensitivity or signal output if you use them in your hand as a phone. I'm waiting for the Ichop, a phone on one end that detaches and the screen and other crap which can be joined if you are going away, say. I don't need internet and christ knows what else if going to the shops!
Brian
Out of interest (although this supposedly doesn't apply to iPhones) almost all phones provided by Carphone Warehouse are supplied unlocked - which I only found out when I asked about unlocking.
SteveW
Loads of firms on-line will do this for a small fixed fee, you just enter code on handset.
Every phone myself or anyone I know that has been bought from CPW has been unlocked, mind you that doesn't include any Orange phones.
For an iPhone???
For a lot of modern phones, it unfortunately isn't that simple. And in any case the fee often exceeds the normal unlocking fee.
Yep, my iphone was originally on a Tesco contract, and when that ended Tesco unlocked it for free without a fuss, and I was able to move elsewhere (on to a 100% free cashback deal :)).
It was an odd 'unlocking' actually - ISTR it happened automagically through some process which was initiated when I synched the phone with iTunes
David
I have a spare Nokia which was locked to Vodaphone and on PAYG, before I put its SIMM in my new phone . Bought a Tesco PAYG SIMM for 99p and unlocked it via instructions found on the net. But I didn't want to transfer my existing number to it, obviously.
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