Unlock Phone for Free - Device Unlock App

Best Deal on a Mobile Phone

First, always buy a phone & go with a cheaper prepaid service like Cricket. Even if the phone seems expensive, do the math.  You'll find it's way cheaper.  Add up what you pay for the phone and the 2 years worth of service in your contract at $70 or more per month.  Versus buying the phone out right & going with a prepaid service at a far cheaper rate for 2 years.

Then, look for a good deal on the phone.  I wanted a good camera at a good price so I googled best camera phones of (insert prior year). Then picked a model & searched for a deal.  I ended up with a T-Mobile overstock which is needless to say. locked to T-Mobile. And I can't get quite as cheap of a plan with TMobile.  So it needed to be unlocked.

How to Unlock a Phone

So T-Mobile wouldn't do it for me without my having a T-Mobile account & service on that phone.  I spent hours exploring options, reading forums and articles.  There are services that do this for a fee. But it sounded like there was some risk involved, at least for my situation. I don't recall exactly.  But after hours of arguing with T-Mobile and searching the internet, I finally find a post in a discussion forum in which someone pointed out there was an App on the T-Mobile phone called Device Unlock.  You just click on it, choose Permanently Unlock. Restart the phone & viola. It's unlocked.   I notice in the app store, there are many unlock apps. I don't know if there's a fee for those. 

Let me repeat the pertinent part in case someone is looking for it.  I'm making them Headings as well to help SEO results.

How to Unlock a T-Mobile Phone without a T-Mobile account for free. 

Inside the T-Mobile folder is an App called Device Unlock

Click on the Device Unlock app.  Select Permanently Unlock. Restart.  Your phone will be unlocked. 

Now, the next thing that happened to me is that turns out the phone I bought, an LG G4, has an overheating issue that makes it not boot up one day. Or do what they call Bootlooping. So, after spending hours researching that as well, I had to send it in for repair, or rather, a motherboard replacement.  I was pleased that it was returned to me in less than a week from the date I sent it. So, happily I installed the Cricket SIM, SDHC card, etc & began to reset up my phone.  Problem.  It wouldn't connect to Cricket.  I removed & reinstalled, rebooted, etc.  I realized that when you start the phone up, the display says 'Network Locked." On my unlocked phone! I try the app & it says the device is permanently unlocked.

Searched for hours on the internet, etc. Finally I find one post where someone has the same problem & he solved it.  Here: https://support.t-mobile.com/thread/93749?start=0&tstart=0

Again, let me state it again with phrases I think people will use to search for answers. At least, they are what I searched for 

How to Unlock your already unlocked phone with Device Unlock App when unlocked Phone says Network Locked and Mobile Networks is grayed out. 

1. Go to App Settings for the Device Unlock App.  
2. Stop the App, & clear all data & Cache. I had to go to storage settings to do that.
3. Restart the Phone. 
4. Then go to the Device Unlock App & unlock the phone again. 
5. Restart again, I think. The app will tell you. 

You know, when I first switched to prepaid, I took my old Iphone to AIO which has since become Cricket.  Then I lost the Iphone & not wanting to spend much money, I bought a super cheap, slow, small Chinese ZTE phone for $50.  And I have never had a single problem with it.  I've switched back to it when other phones had problems, such as when I sent the LG in for repair.  I pop the Sim into the phone & it works. Probably because it was always a no contract phone.  Just felt like saying that. I rather like the little phone, nice size in the hand or your pocket and AIO had a cheerful friendly vibe and so does this phone.  Cheerful notification &  ringtones & other messages. Unfortunately, it can't be upgraded to the latest android & some apps I want won't install.