Originally Posted by inhouseuk:
“Which phone is it and how much did he pay? What would the same phone cost sim free?
The difference between the two prices is the amount of subsidy that Orange have put on it and would expect back in revenue.”
Hello,
Our son wanted a Samsung phone and found what he wanted on Gumtree.
He badgered his older brother in collecting the phone with him to be told when they arrived the phone had been sold in error.
He was however offered a choice of some others one of them being a BNIB Orange HTC Hero.
Having been shown a shop receipt and some hard bargaining he paid £150 for the Hero having mugged his brother for £30-00.
I'm pleased for him but a little envious, I've been looking at getting one myself and he got it for a good price I reckon.
The Hero is locked to Orange, he knew this, at the moment his existing phone is an Orange PAYG , he wants to take advantage of better deals and he has had some good advise off DS to this effect.
He did some web research and discovered several thing about the Orange Hero.
I hope I have this right.
Web based unlocking companies
can not unlock a Orange Hero.
My understanding is HTC sell these phones to Orange, who customize them and also change the unlocking code from the original.
Some high street mobile shops can apparently unlock but the phone needs to go away for a day or two and can cost upto £35 to so.
My son tells me that he is better getting an unlock code from Orange because-------
my son discovered in the event he ever had to do a hard reset on this phone, the Orange Hero would automatically revert back to being locked to Orange again,----something I have not heard of before happening.
His thinking being he is better off buying the code from Orange, so just a question of unlocking it again with the code should he ever need to do a hard reset.
He tells me he may eventually De-brand the phone, but first has to unlock.
I told him to consider a rebel sim but he says for the extra fiver or so he might as well buy an unlock code from Orange.
When he went to purchase the code from Orange he was told the IMEI had to be registered for three months and I had not heard of this either.
My son is not on a contract with this phone, he did not buy it from an Orange shop with some kind of deal attached, the phone is not subsidized except by his brother.
It was a straight forward legit' private deal and the phone is in perfect working order.
Just that Orange won't sell him an unlocking code for three months.