Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I ordered this phone because of its dual-sim configuration. My wife travels to Europe once a year and we both travel there on vacation every year or two. I thought it would be nice to have an unlocked phone to use with our (pre-paid) T-Mobile service here in the US and with local carriers in Europe so we would not have to pay outrageous international charges.
The phone itself is nice and light. It came with LG software on a mini-disk, an international charging plug, a micro usb cable, a pair of ear phones and an English language Users Guide. A very nice setup. The phone feels good in my hands and menu setup seems easy. I particularly liked the reasonably large numeric keys on the front for making calls. So why only 3 stars?
The phone does not appear to work with T-Mobile. When I tried to make a call, the attempt failed. When I tried to do an automatic Network assignment the phone failed to register with the network. When I tried to do a manual Network assignment I found out why the previous attempts had failed - the only network the phone sees is AT&T. T-Mobile and Cingular both have good signals in this area, so I have to assume that the phone is locked to AT&T. Since the phone is marketed as unlocked that seems like a serious issue to me. My attempts to work with Amazon customer service to get the phone unlocked have not been fruitful since customer service, although wanting to help, does not have the unlock codes.
I might have given it fewer stars since it does not work as an unlocked phone, but my guess is that the phone would be very nice if it did work with T-Mobile. I will ask Amazon to replace it to try again and I will update this review accordingly.
UPDATED 2/14/2011
Amazon shipped a replacement phone overnight and it arrived today. The packing was somewhat different from the first in that it contained a warranty card (the first package did not) and did not contain the mini-disk for the LG software. This gave me some cause for hope, but when tested the phone still only acknowledged the AT&T network so I could not use my T-Mobile sim card. Reluctantly I had to return this phone also, but before doing so I contacted a tech at one of the stores that specialize in unlocked phones and he suggested that the issue might be the pre-paid card and not the phone.
I then took the phone to one of the local T-Mobile stores and explained my problem to them. They took a regular (that is, not pre-paid) sim card and placed it in the phone. When the phone was booted up it saw both the T-Mobile and AT&T networks. When the pre-paid sim was placed back in the phone it was again unable to see the T-Mobile network. Hence the problem is not that the phone is actually locked, but that it will not work with the T-Mobile pre-paid sims. Since that is what I have I reluctantly returned the phone. This experience made me wonder if some of the other reviewers that complained of unlocked phones being locked were running into the same issue and I felt that I should detail my experience in case it would help someone else.
Click Here to see more reviews about: LG GX200 Unlocked GSM Quad-Band Cell Phone with Dual-Sim Support, 1.3 MP Camera and MicroSD Card Slot - US Warranty - Black
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