It is. It’s a public misconception that it isn’t. You can pay people, even your own provider to give you the unlock code or try the internet to do it yourself, or start a venture by buying a unlock dongle(but they are pricey).
Basically once you are given the phone, it’s yours and you can do with it what you want, if you rather believe the police, read this.
I just bought a Blackberry 8120 on eBay and had to unlock it. After running through one of my favorite consumer sites moneysavingexpert.com, I found out Nokia phones are easiest to unlock, and it’s mostly free to do so. In any case, all you need is your phone’s unique IMEI code (which you can get by typing *#06# on your phone’s keypad. This number in combination with provider the phone i s locked to(orange in my case) , model number (blackberry 8120) and sometimes the country you are in is all you need to supply the unlockers with.
It is said that you rphone provider can unlock the phone, but they cheekily charge a lot for it. In London unlocking is offered everywhere, most offers I remember were about £20. There are quite a few websites who claim sending you the code once you paid, but be careful. Sites like wirelessunlocks.com /.net are scams!!
After reading about some, I decided to give eBay a shot. If you check the reviews of the seller’s transactions and google about a bit, you will find, on eBay, it’s fairly safe to deal, they have quite a reputation to loose. I found a seller called gsm-tools, and paid only £9.95 to get my unlock code after paying and sending him an email with my phone’s details.
Here is the procedure to enter your unlock code in your Blackberry:
Note: this one worked well with my 8120, but there seem to be small differences in terms of documentation and maybe model(e.g. typing MEPD did not work for me(though it is documented by other blackberry users), it had to be MEPPD.
1. Insert SIM into device
2. Power phone on and turn off the radio (Turn Wireless Off option) VERY IMPORTANT.
3. Select “Options”, select “Advanced Options”
4. Scroll down and select “SIM Card”
5. Type “MEPPD” (please note that you will not see what you type on the screen)
6. Type “MEPP then [ALT BUTTON] then 2″ (please note that you will not see what you type on the screen)
7. Enter the Unlock Code
8. Press enter
9. Reboot device. Device is now unlocked.
That easy, that cheap, that legal!
Other things you might want to know about blackberry phones:
Maximum micro sd card size:
find your OS version: options>settings>about
BlackBerry Device Software 4.2.0 Up to 2 GB
BlackBerry Device Software 4.2.1 Up to 4 GB
BlackBerry Device Software 4.2.2 Up to 4 GB
BlackBerry Device Software 4.3.0 Up to 8 GB
BlackBerry Device Software 4.5.0 Up to 8 GB
BlackBerry Device Software 4.5.0.81 and later Up to 16 GB
BlackBerry Device Software 4.6.0 and later Up to 32 GB
There is a lot of stuff on crackberry.com
Hope that helped.
