The process of buying my new unlocked iPhone
Since a few weeks now, I have been the happy owner of an Iphone 3G. After 4 years of old school calling and text messaging with my Sony Ericsson S700, my social network urged me to purchase a decent phone.
During a visit to Manhattan, New York City last month I started my "iPhone hunt" together with my girlfriend. It turned out that buying an unlocked iPhone is not the easiest task in the Big Apple. The Apple store and licensed resellers only sold the gadget with an AT&T plan. Because I am currently living at Aruba, this option would not be the most convenient one. I needed a phone that I could use worldwide, not to be limited to 1 network provider.
After visiting many, though not very fancy looking "dealers", near Times Square we found out that many iPhones 3G's were supposed to be unlocked but did not work when we inserted our own sim-card. (Might you consider buying an unlocked Iphone, make sure to try it with the sim card installed). Eventually we ended up in a store on 55th street and 6th Avenue. The price of the phone was $800, unlocked and instantly ready to use. I bought the phone and speeded back to the hotel to charge it right away. After charging the phone worked excellent and brought me intense happiness :-)
When I woke up the next morning, I was frightened: my phone did not work any more. The network status icon indicated "No Service". I figured that the easiest way to resolve this issue was either to reboot the phone or to re-insert the sim-card. Unfortunately both did not work. Although the phone was unlocked with the Yellowsn0w app, I was unable to use my phone and I was close to becoming desperate.
After an hour of searching the net I finally found the resolution: my sim card had the 4 digit password enabled. After disabling the sim password, the phone recognized the sim card and started "searching" for a network. Within seconds my Iphone was ready to use again and I have not experienced any malfunctionings since...
I am having the same problem, but because my bootloader is 5.9…on 3G firmwire 3.0… this is scary because I do not understand why Apple have to release such phone out when they do not have the full responsibility on the phone…this is really crazy.
ReplyDeleteHello all, after couple of days of search I was able to find used Iphone 3G's with this guys www.Bnytech.com. Paid $475 for almost new mint phone, very happy, still works.
ReplyDeleteSorry here is the website http://www.bnytech.com/Iphone-repair-new-york.html
ReplyDeleteI was looking for an unlocked iphone 4 in NYC, the best place I found after spending a long time looking is at volox cellular. There is website is at http://www.voloxcellular.com they are on fifth and 32nd.
ReplyDeleteI have a iphone 3g but i need to get it unlocked. What store in nyc can do this?
ReplyDeleteI needed an iphone repair and these guys did a great jop with my iphone 4 screen replacement. Just so you know... http://repairmyiphonenyc.com
ReplyDelete