Anyone who bought a locked version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Note 2, Samsung Galaxy S3 or the S4 will be interested to hear about an engineer’s code that allows you to unlock your handset. When the handset is unlocked the owner is then free to use it anywhere they want, with whatever carrier they choose.
You could have purchased the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with Verizon for instance. At the moment you can only use the handset with that carrier. If you unlock it, when your contract runs out you can move to whichever carrier you want.
So to unlock your Samsung Galaxy Note 3, or indeed any other Samsung handset you have to take the SIM card from the device and put in another from one of the other carriers. Turn the device off and then switch it back on again.
You then need to open up the dial pad and enter *#197328640#. Go to your main menu > [1] UMTS > [1] Debug Screen > [8] Phone Control > [6] Network Lock > Options [3] Perso SHA256 OFF. Wait for 30 seconds or a minute before going back to your main menu and choosing “back”. You will now see a “Network Lock” message. Choose [4] NW Lock NV Data INITIALLIZ.
If you typed in the sequence right, it should read: “Asterisk Pound One Nine Seven Three Two Eight Six Four Zero Pound”. Remember that some people call the asterisk “star”, and the pound button “hash”.
Your handset should now be unlocked and can be used with any SIM card anywhere around the world. Samsung engineers have used the code for some time and it is said to work with many Samsung devices.
