unlocked

In what is undoubtedly a very pleasant surprise if you're an owner of an unlocked Dell Venue Pro, you can now reportedly upgrade your device to OS 8107.

For those unfamiliar, OS 8107 addresses the disappearing keyboard issue as well as other security fixes and patches. In addition, prior to receiving 8107 the user will be prompt for 7740, a previous update which also addresses some bugs e.g. voicemail notifications and Exchange 2003 email errors.

We received numerous reports of the DVP getting the update (although our is just showing 7740 as being the latest).  If accurate, this is great news for Dell owners, especially as the OEM has unceremoniously dropped out from further smartphone development for the foreseeable future.

Hit us up on comments if your DVP has received 8107 in the last 24 hours.

Thanks, Arnout and Sven Z., for the tips!

For those with an extra $689 CAD ($682 US) to spare, you can pick up the Nokia Lumia 800 unlocked from NCIX. The phone is normally $50 more but there's a special web-only deal till December 14th. For those curious on the bands:

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; HSPA/WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz.

What makes that cool is even folks here on AT&T can pick up this bad boy and get HSPA+ due to the inclusion of their 1900MHz WCDMA frequency--just something to think about.

The only bad thing about this is the color: black. Sure, black is always awesome but we wouldn't mind picking up this guy in Cyan at all--stand out a little, you know? Still, we'll take what we can so head on over to NCIX to place your order.

Source: NCIX; Thanks, Baljinder, for the tip!

We have a report that the HTC Titan, at least in Denmark & the UK, is being pushed the 7740 OS update. As a recap, this update fixes a voicemail notification bug and fixes Exchange 2003 email support. The update looks to be an interim and minor update, though considering the bugs, perhaps not so minor. Yesterday, reports flooded in of some Samsung and HTC devices receiving this update.

Of course our AT&T friends are wondering if they will get it too for their Titans, but unfortunately at this point there is no evidence of US Windows Phones getting this update. At least according to Microsoft, this is a carrier-update so who gets it and who doesn't will be a little more spotty.

As usual, if you're a Titan owner who is getting 7740, chime in with your carrier/location for others in comments. Thanks, HTCTitan & Lee G., for the heads up!

A while back Clove, a UK mobile phone retailer, announced on their blog that their stock of unlocked Nokia Lumia 800s would be delayed until January 2012. Today, they've stated that the date has been pushed forward to December 1st. Ordering via Clove will set the buyer back by £369 (excluding VAT), not a bad price at all.

So how many of you will be picking one up? Remember, it requires a microSIM card, so hot-swapping phones on your carrier of choice could be an issue. And while you wait, check out our review of the Lumia 800.

Source: Clove Blog

For those you bought a Samsung Focus S, you'll of course know it's SIM locked to the AT&T network. For those who travel abroad and don't want to rely on AT&T's roaming plans or maybe for those who want to just permanently use it overseas, you can now pay for a SIM unlock.

The service comes by way of 'Samsung IMEI Unlock' which takes payment via Paypal and SWReg and sends the code "nearly instantly". While prices for Samsung devices start at $20, the Focus S will hit your wallet for $29.75.

That's not exactly cheap but for the freedom of not being tied to AT&T, we suppose it's not a bad option. Of course you can always try and haggle with AT&T to do this for free, but last we check they like to have a six-month wait policy before conceding the code. So, options are nice to have.

Source: SamsungIMEIUnlock.com; Thanks, @djdurance, for the tip!

Busy day here at WPCentral, what with the news and all plus two of us here have received our unlocked (AT&T) Dell Venue Pros, which as we reported are now available for $299.

We received lots of inquiries about the status of the firmware of this device--specifically is it the latest, greatest firmware to rule them all (v2.12)? Well, Dell did claim all unlocked phones would ship with 2.12 starting at the end of June and true to their word, they do.

As you can see in the picture, the 2.12 firmware and OS version 7392 are on board, making these device as up to date as you can get (without flashing Mango). So far, we've had no lockups or WiFi issue and we have a reported 15+GB of storage available and 512MB of RAM (480 available).

But what about T-Mobile and AT&T branded phones? The former was suppose to get the 2.12 firmware update "around the middle" of July and we're just a bit past that with no update yet. Still, Dell has some wiggle room here so perhaps in the next few days? That's at least better than AT&T branded phones which have no release schedule publicly posted, though we heard some rumblings about August. Neither situation is doing anything to win over current Venue Pro owners though, so here's to a quick fix.

We'll have a hands on with the DVP soon. Until then, we're going to try to figure out to get AT&T data to work on ours--we get "H" for HSDPA, which sounds awesome and promising, but nothin's coming in...

Smartphones, being fairly expensive these days (especially for us Windows Phone users), are required to be looked after for the two year duration of our contracts (should we be tied to one) until we can get that special free/discounted upgrade and receive another device from a carrier. 

Although stability through even the most heaviest of usage is pretty good and handsets seem to last a good for years for some, it's when users begin to dive into the OS and hardware configuration that problems begin to appear. For WP7, this was most apparent with the Chevronwp7.updater situation which left a large number of devices not able to receive official updates from Microsoft.

We've always noted with our homebrew and unlocking coverage that to perform any action or carry out any process that's not officially supported by the big names could leave you stumped with a unusable device at any point. Enter into the room: enabling tethering on your WP7 device.

We've been made aware of some users over at the XDA Developers forum reporting that their devices have become unable to connect to Zune when plugged in and not even a hard reset can correct the issue. No solution has been found and users are left with no alternative but return to their local store and get a replacement device or further help with firmware etc.

While the functionality may be worth it should this hack work successfully, the problems that can arise when something goes wrong can be pretty devastating. Take a look at the thread (linked below) and some of the posts by users. Should you continue to use unofficial hacks and whatnot, always be sure to double check steps, sources and reliability to prevent this happening to you too.

Source: XDA Developers Forum, via WP7.com.pl

We hate writing posts ripping on Samsung because we're generally big fans of their Windows Phones (who isn't)? So it kind of pains us to write how, at least through the Twitter Canadian support channel, they're telling a customer that his Windows Phone's warranty is now void since he carrier unlocked it. Specifically, Colin B. has an AT&T carrier branded Focus that he wants to work on Fido. He has to have data-roaming enabled even though it is carrier unlocked so he asked Samsung about it...hence their response: "Hi Colin. Your warranty is void. Please contact Fido if you have issues with data usage."

We've actually seen this before with the MMS issue. There, Samsung said there phones are meant for specific networks only and do not support reconfiguration. Of course that was sort of nonsense as they had a semi-working app in their App store for that purpose. They then updated it to fix the MMS configuration error.

Carrier unlocking phones is a pretty standard practice these days, especially with places like Europe considering it a consumer right. So it's odd to see Samsung wiping their hands of the matter with a customer who has an issue. What do you folks think--Samsung being fair and within their rights or just poor customer service?

Source: Twitter; Thanks, Colin, for the info

In a sort of follow up to our earlier story, about how MMS does not work if you switch SIM cards on some unlocked Windows Phones, Samsung responded in a Tweet on their policy.

Evidently, they say their phones are configured to work on a specfic networks and only those networks. So if you buy an unlocked/unsubsidized Samsung phone from some carrier, don't expect it to work on other networks. In other words: buyer beware.

That's a real shame for consumers and we're not sure why they would support being so carrier-locked. Perhaps they can share some more information on their decision and how they expect consumers to respond.

Source: Twitter; Thanks, Chris H., for the tip