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A new toy... and a new hack
After three years of being fairly happy with my cell phone (an LG VX6000), I decided it was time to visit the local Verizon store and upgrade. Frankly, I had all but killed the battery in my poor old 6000 and rather than spend the money on a new battery, I wanted something new to play with.
So what did I end up with? A shiny new
LG VX8100. Overall, it was the best option for me, with a bunch of slick features - although I think Verizon is fairly mercenary with the way they set up their phones. Regardless, the handset supports Bluetooth headsets - a first for me - as well as sporting a decent camera, and a media player (also a first for me). The winning factor for me was the mini SD slot that the phone has, so I can load up a bunch of music and pictures and tote them around. Now I can put off buying an iPod for a few more years.
The basic reason for this post is because I promptly found a way to "hack" the phone and enable the built in MP3 player. Straight from Verizon, this feature is not available, but it's easily enabled using the following steps:
- Access the main menu by pressing the OK button
- Press "0" to access the service menu
- Press "0" six times for the service code
- Go to setting 11, "Music Setting"
- Press the OK button
- Select "MP3 Enable"
- Press the OK button
- Press "END"
- Restart your phone.
Now that you've rebooted the phone, the MP3 player is enabled. To use it...
- Enter "Get It Now" by pressing the right navigation button
- Select "Get Tunes & Tones"
- There will be a new option available, #8: "My MP3s"
Now you can play any MP3s that you have loaded onto your external mini SD card. For me, this is huge, because I didn't want to be forced into converting my existing music collection, nor do I feel like paying $1.99 a pop for music from the VCast service, which is in WMA format at a low bitrate. Not that fidelity through the onboard stereo speakers is great, and only marginally better with the earbuds - but now, I have one device that I can tote around, and listen to my music when I'm doing... whatever.