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Stupid Unlocking Charges!

Tokiopop

Tokiopop

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 6, 2008
1,556
0
West Yorkshire, UK
I was curious to know if the 3G was unlockable, so I went to the market (oh I'm oh so cool. :cool:), and went to one of those state of the art phone places, that sell second hand (knocked off) phones and whatnot. I asked them if they unlocked the iPhone 3G, and to my suprise they said yes.
After I got what I came for, I turned round and began to leave, but I couldn't help ask the price which they charged to unlock the phone. £70. Seventy bloody quid. I was astonished! The man then said 'we need for at least 5 days also. Is very tricky to unlock, see?'
So, I have to fork out £70, and give my phone away for at least 5 days to a total stranger. Great! :rolleyes:

Anyone else think this is a stupid price? How much do they charge at your local 'Super' phone shop? Is it even possible with the 2.2 firmware!?
 
iPhone 3G

The iPhone 3G can be hardware unlocked. There's already been a story of someone doing it. It does take a long time.

You have to open the phone.
Take out the baseband chip.
Extract the baseband data.
Patch the data to allow other SIM cards.
Put the chip back in.
Put it together.

So, it's very plausible that it does take 5 days.
And it's also very possible it was a scam. I guess you won't know until 5 days from now.
 
Yes, the iPhone can be hardware unlocked. In Portugal we can get Vodafone (one of the carriers that has the iPhone) to hardware unlock the iPhone, but also for a stupid price. But it is legit.
 
anjinhamarota said:
Yes, the iPhone can be hardware unlocked. In Portugal we can get Vodafone (one of the carriers that has the iPhone) to hardware unlock the iPhone, but also for a stupid price. But it is legit.
Click to expand...
That's carrier unlock, which is supported by Apple. Topic of discussion here is 3rd party unlock not support by Apple.
 
5 days ? Do they backup yours, buy unlocked one on eBay, restore your backup to the unlocked one and give it back to youn keeping yours ? :)) £70 profit anyway, 2 sides happy hehe.
 
leez said:
5 days ? Do they backup yours, buy unlocked one on eBay, restore your backup to the unlocked one and give it back to youn keeping yours ? :)) £70 profit anyway, 2 sides happy hehe.
Click to expand...

That wouldn't surprise me!

But there was an article on cnet about a guy in vietnam doing a hardware unlock by removing the baseband, but it supposedly only takes a couple hours. Are you guys getting the "autoiphoneulocker" ad on the bottom of the page?
 
iPhone Hardware Unlock.

Here is the article on the Vietnamese shop that performs hardware unlocks in the manner described by bradenwh and ex8886. :D
 
Umm,

Airforcekid said:
:apple:Phones gone cant unlock 2.1 yet so sorry try finding him or tell police. Also in the future do it yourself it isn't hard mainly just clicking next!:apple:
Click to expand...

Umm, I do believe he is talking about the iPhone 3G, and cannot unlock the 3G with the method you mentioned. Please pay attention.
 
The hardware unlock they do in Vietnam seems to require unsoldering the baseband chip from the iPhone's main circuit board, most likely in order to get access to the chips JTAG test/debug port. Not a simple task.

.
 
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