By It’s usually a painful (and intimidating, depending on the carrier) process to SIM unlock a device, but the Samsung Galaxy S’s unlock codes for the American GSM versions – AT&T’s Captivate and T-Mobile’s Vibrant – are so easily attainable that you don’t need to make a phone call to anyone: they’re stored in a .BAK file on the phone itself.
XDA hackers have come up with a script that would allow you to easily SIM unlock your device of choice, with the added bonus of the Vibrant being able to take advantage of AT&T’s 3G network (the Captivate was stuck on Edge for T-Mobile, unfortunately). This will prove to be very useful for a lot of people who don’t particularly fancy AT&T’s Captivate but can’t live without their service. Anyone going to be trying this out soon? Head on over to XDA to get started, if so.
[via Engadget]
What can I say. 3 cheers to the guys (gals) who came up with this. Another brick thru the window of the JobSonian MOB, eh? Just think, no degradation of performance. Just a Liberated PHONE.
Cheers.
“can’t live without their service” who goes to at&t for the awesome coverage? i guess vs t-mobile though.
Will try this tonight on wife’s phone.
Tried it on my vibrant last night, worked great! Not only does it work with my ATT sim card, it also even gets 3G!
Woah, so the vibrant uses both 3G bands? Slap Cyanogen on it, that’s one sexy phone…
I love T-Mobile and HSPA+!!!
I should add:
– The Bell Canada Galaxy S (also called Vibrant but not the same as the T-Mo Vibrant) also unlocks this way.
– The T-Mobile Vibrant has *one* of AT&T’s 3G bands, UMTS 1900. It does not have 850 so it will drop to EDGE in zones without 1900.
Or, if you’re with T-Mobile, you can simply call T-Mobile and they will send you the unlock code.
The 1900MHz AT&T 3G band is the stronger one, my phone only has that band and my 3G coverage is great (well, as great as AT&T 3G can be)
Unlocked my phone, and my three working companions phones. :)
@Teckel – You can if you either 1, bought the phone off contract and had it for 15 or 30 days (as in not returning it) or 2, bought it on contract and had the phone for 6 months.
I haven’t been able to find anything to indicate that the Vibrant supports UMTS 1900 or 850. Are the specs on a lot of sites just wrong? Can someone point me to some accurate info?