Thursday 2 February 2012

Gevey Ultra In Japan

It's quite sad when a phone company locks their own customers out from using a phone they provide, just so they can force you to go on a more expensive plan. Shame shame shame.

Since I changed to a prepaid I quickly learnt that it would not work on the company's locked handset. For Christ sakes, it's the same company! Fortunately I did manage to unlock my iPhone 3G and it worked great. BUT, it was slow and clunky and well, I had the later one so what's the reason to let it go to waste sitting in a drawer?

I waited a long, long time for the software unlock but it never eventuated. Gevey offer a SIM unlock solution which is a chip that goes under your SIM card which allows it to be used with other providers (or breaking the unfair locking scenario).

I decided to bite the bullet and get me one. Be careful going around Akihabara. From what I saw, there looks to be a lot of fakes, and there is no guarantee of their success rate.

It arrived yesterday around noon, but I waited till after work to do it. I had to do an extra cut on my SIM card for the chip. I used my swiss army knife, and with one slip I lightly cut the top of my finger. I didn't feel any pain but it didn't stop bleeding, hindering my efforts to do the most minimal cutting in case it wasn't going to work, I could put it back in my old phone. Tip: Just use scissors (or nippers)! It's much quicker and safer.

There are two models of the Gevey - Pro and Ultra. Any other name is definitely a fake. While the Pro is cheaper, get the Ultra. The advantage is by using the FuriousMod application, the whole unlock process is completely automated. (If the app doesn't work you most likely have a fake chip.)

Thankfully it went well without a hitch (except a cut finger). Everything is working as expected!