So here is the deal, my sister has a lg g3 with a sim port that has missing pins, so no sim card can work in it. It still connects to wifi with no trouble. However if she gives it to me she would want me to factory reset it. If I do so I am guessing I would need a mobile connection to activate it. Since I cant possibly do that is there a way to use it without activating it? Or should I tell her that it can’t be done and that if it is reset we wouldn’t be able to use it. It would be bricked. Is it possible to activate it without a sim card?
I think we need more information. If it was purchased as an unlocked phone then it should restore fine. If I recall correctly, I recently bough a family member a G4 at BestBuy and we were able to get it all set up before the SIM ever went into it (had to get a new SIM because of microSIM vs normal SIM). However, if the phone your sister has was purchased cheaply along with a 2-year contract or something similar, then it could have a connectivity requirement.
tl;dr - If it was a factory unlocked phone it should reset with no problems. If it has AT&Tware on it though, maybe not.
It is locked to verizon. So I guess we should just uninstall stuff and not factory reset it.
It should be more than possible to just factory reset the phone without having a sim.
Never had that be a issue. You can reset it via a recovery menu or even through the settings app
I dont see why not. You’re talking about just setting up android again which can be done via wifi. I’m not sure what other activation has to take place here.
You shouldn’t need a connection with the carrier to reset the phone, the lock only prevents you from using it on another network.
1 Like
If Verizon supports it, you should try having wifi calling on, that way you don’t need the Sim.
If you don’t feel like dealing with Verizon, you can switch her to Google Voice and connect it to hangouts as texting and calling are all WiFi based(assuming that she doesn’t value her privacy)