virgin mobile htc one v. need,to make this gsm

[Marcus Gopaul]

Good day.

So i purchased a htc one v from the virgin mobile network.

On opening the base compartment i discovered that there was no sim card area exposed. Instead this version is enclosed with plastic.
I would assume that if i open the device with a screwdriver that there will be a sim card area. however i'm not sure if it would be enabled.

Secondly,i'm not sure if the virgin mobile software would accept a sim card.
So i want to know:

1. Will the slot be there and active if i open it?
2. Will it be possible to flash the phone to a different carrier's firmware?

Plz give me a detailed response with some sources. I wanna be sure of whether or not it is possible to use this as a gsm device

 

[quicksilver53]

I just googled your phone and found that if it is on virgin mobile in the US then it is a CDMA variant and will not work on gsm. I have the one x which has a sim tray that pops out. Not having one or one under a removable back would have been my first clue.

Sent from my One X using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Marcus Gopaul]

I just googled your phone and found that if it is on virgin mobile in the US then it is a CDMA variant and will not work on gsm. I have the one x which has a sim tray that pops out. Not having one or one under a removable back would have been my first clue.

Sent from my One X using AC Forums mobile app

The thing is that the mainboard for both gsm and cdma models would be the same so if i open the device the slot will be there
the only issue if whether or not it would work

 

[Marcus Gopaul]

I know . However i was reading some of the other post and i came across " *#*#4636#*#* ", which brings up a menu allowing me to change the network search preference from CDMA to GSM. COuld you tell me more about how this works?

 

[quicksilver53]

I personally have no idea how this works. A good idea when purchasing a phone is to get one that will work on the network you plan to use it with when unlocked. I would not attempt to alter the motherboard.

Sent from my HTC One using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Bradski9]

Virgin mobile spent a lot of time making sure you didn't use their phones on anything other than virgin mobile. (sprint would be your best bet) I don't think it is worth the trouble to try and modify it to a point where it can be used on other carriers

 

[Mach Fiver]

I don't think that it's possible to do that. I know that oftentimes with phones that are sold as CDMA or GSM versions that the physical oarts are different. When buying a digitizer for an HTC EVO 3D GSM, I had to make sure that I got the GSM digitizer not the CDMA one because they aren't compatible, due to the placement on the motherboard of the connector, I assume. I didn't look into it further than triple checking to make sure I didn't order the CDMA by mistake. Also CDMA and GSM work on two different frequencies, Installing the GSM ROM onto a CDMA or vice versa will brick your device, and the HBOOT versions are different too, ShooterU for GSM and Shooter for CDMA.

For the One V the nickname is PRIMOC for the CDMA and PRIMOU for the GSM.

Also if you read just about any tutorial for installing ROMs there is a ***WARNING*** message regarding flashing the wrong type especially.

I know that you can sometimes (with the correct ROM and setup) that you can convert a GSM to work as a CDMA, but how that is done I couldn't say as I haven't had the need or desire to.

On a different but similar tangent to this topic that I have noticed regarding every HTC device I have seen is that the GSM version of the phone always has a 'u' at the end of the nickname for that model and the CDMA doesn't except for the ONE V which is the first time I have seen it have a 'C' at the end. e.g., Wildfire S, GOLF CDMA, GOLFU GSM, ONE XL, ENDEAVOR CDMA, ENDEAVOROU GSM, to name a couple of them.

I Hope this clears it up for you, on another note if it were physically possible to change over a CDMA phone to a GSM version I would guess that the prices would be similar to each other, as it stands the CDMA's are always cheaper than their GSM counterparts.