Information about unlocking your Orange Stockholm

One of the main advantages when we "unlock" our phone is that it will work with any SIM card, from any carrier (telecommunication service provider) in any country, but the process of unlocking can take up quite a lot from our precious time.

Telecommunication service providers often lock the phones which they sell or include in certain services because of their desire to increase customer loyalty by hampering their free movement from one network to another, blocking those phones into their own network. 

Your phone is locked if you insert a SIM card from another network provider and it asks for a network unlock code (not to be confused with PIN numer).

Orange Stockholm as it name shows (a device from the network provider called Orange) is a locked or blocked device. It's a fact. But on the other hand if you own a Huawei U8180, it is probably not locked.

So the question becomes available: How do you unlock your Orange Stockholm?

Well, you can't unlock your phone by installing CyanogenMod or any custom or stock ROM, nor by any known software, nor by rooting the phone (in that case you can only uninstall branded software). I tried it, so you don't have to.

It can not be unlocked by those so called free unlock code generators, which generate a code depending on the IMEI code of your device. I tried a dozen of them only ending up with a blocked phone, not willing to show the panel in which to enter the unlock code because of the large amount of incorrect unlock codes I entered into my phones. 

In the end your asking: Is it actually possible to unlock it?

The answer is: Yes! The problem is that it is not free. There are many offers on the Internet where you only have to type your IMEI code, I'm not going to advertise them because they differ for every country/region, and after paying the fee which is about 10 euro or about 10 pound they give you the unlock code by SMS or e-mail, depending on the type of the service. Or you can also check out your friendly neighbourhood mobile phone kiosk, or GSM Shop for the same amount of money. You can get your phone's IMEI by calling *#06# with your mobile phone.   

Remember: Don't waste your time with free unlock code generators, because at the moment none of them work. Paying 10 euro for the unlocking of your Orange Stockholm isn't much, and this way you won't end up with a blocked device which would cost more to unlock.

Stock ROM for Huawei

By following this tutorial you can reset your phone into to state it was when you purchased it, installing the Official Huawei ROM. It resets everything, so PLEASE BACKUP EVERY SENSITIVE DATA YOU HAVE ON THE PHONE!

Procedure: 

1st Step: Download the stock ROM from this link. There is also a guide in the download if you find this hard to follow.(This ROM is from the Australian telecommunications company called Optus, it will not block your phone to this operator) 
 
2nd Step: Format your SD card into FAT32 ( if unsure, it is best you leave it the way it is)
 
3rd Step: Create a folder "dload" on to the root of your SD card.
 
4th Step: Extract the UPDATE.APP from the stock ROM and place it in "dload"
 
5th Step: Power off your phone with SD card inside.
 
6th Step: Power on by pressing Volume Up+Volume Down+Power Buttons; if done properly you will see a progress bar saying UPDATING. After it's done it will reboot automatically. Your phone will be good as new! (Hopefully more vendors will be added)

Overclocking your phone

Overclocking is the process when you speed up your phone's microprocessor. This can be achieved by various programs which can be downloaded from the Android Market.

Choose a program from the list ( I recommend OverclockWidget), install it. Add it to your homescreen as a widget (By pressing your screen until a list pops up, press the "Widgets" button, then find and add the "OverclockWidget"), set both markers to 600000 Hz.

Congratulations! Now your phone is functioning with a 600 MHz microprocessor. Notice the increase in performance.

Note that in order to use this function, your phone should be rooted. If you don't know how to do it, check the following post.

How to root your phone

With this tutorial you will manage to root your phone and remove branded software.

(If you own a Huawei U8180 (Not Orange Stockholm) only the First Step is necessary, also if you don't want to remove branded software, just to root the phone)

1st Step: Enable installation from unknown sources (Go to menu> settings> applications>) and usb debugging from the same path (menu>settings>applications>development), install Gingerbreak v1.2, run it (download the program to your pc, connect your phone's SD card to your pc, copy the apk file to your SD card, disconnect your phone from your pc then run the program from your SD card). When the program finishes acquiring superuser privileges it will restart.

2nd Step: Then install root capable File Manager (Grant superuser privileges if asked).

3rd Step: Open and modify /default.prop with the File Manager. (Enable Read/Write=the program should display "Mounted as r/w" in the top of the screen press the screen on default.prop until a list pop up, scroll down to the "Open in Text Editor" command)

  Change line: ro.secure=1 to ro.secure=0

 Save file.

4th Step: Install Terminal Emulator, run the following command (type the words, then press enter; you don't have to type the $ symbol):

$ su

$ mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock8 /cust

5th Step: Run the File Manager again and delete /cust/orange folder, but leave the /cust/lost+found folder there. (You can delete a folder by pressing it until a list pops up with the command Delete)

Reboot(Restart) your phone.

6th Step: Install Root Uninstaller: Uninstall all programs with same Orange coloured icon (usually the following, without the complete list:)

Orange homescreen, analogue clock, digital clock, homescreen tips, Orange headlines, Orange startup, Vip contacts, Profiles, Sim toolkit, stock games...

7th Step: Reboot your phone.

Now you have a clean Android system.

Clean Froyo 2.2

Enjoy!

P.S.: You loose your warranty if you root your phone!!!