The Korean Phones

Thursday, October 30, 2014

THE OFFICIAL KOREAN PHONES 

THREAD

NOTE: I am not responsible if you haven't followed the instructions properly, if your device has been damaged or bricked, don't come to me.

THE MISCONCEPTION:
Okay, so let's just be clear that Korean phones do not mean CLONES, they are like phones meant to be used in Korea. Shopkeepers might try to deceive you by showing you a CLONE and calling it a KOREAN. Most shopkeepers will also use the term "Korean Original" ... there is NOTHING like Korean Original. Its just a term, nothing more.


THE DEFICIENCIES:
- They can NOT run EDGE or FM Radio --- Some may have methods available to run GPRS/EDGE. To enable EDGE on a Korean device, you may need to mess around with the baseband which can be tricky and if do not follow the steps correctly, you may end up with a corrupt EFS folder which will result in a Generic IMEI (0049xxxxxxxxxxx) or no IMEI (0000000000000000) which means you won't get any Cellular Signal on your phone. To sum it all up, your phone will turn into an iPod.
- Their firmware is slightly different from the international models --- Might be difficult (or almost impossible) to find ROMs you may desire (say, Cyanogen Mod)
- May not have 3rd party support at all.
- Some Korean phones have either an 80 character or a 160 character limit which can be easily bypassed by using a 3rd Party SMS App such as Textra SMS, GO SMS Pro or Handcent SMS.


THE DIFFERENCES:
- They can be easily spotted because most Korean phones have a T-DMB antenna on the top meant for TV Broadcasts in South Korea.
- Korean phones have become quite popular in Pakistan, especially brands like LG and Samsung and Pantech Vega. 
- The model numbers on most Samsung Korean phones start with a prefix like SHW or SHV (example: SHV-E210). LG phones also have different model numbers from the international ones. Korean phones always have either the letter L, S or K at the end, each stand for a carrier in Korea.

K = KT (Korea Telecom) |S = SKT Telecom |L = LG U+ 

K: KT phones are very common in Pakistan. They have around 7-10 bloatware apps on their devices, can be removed with root access.

S: SKT phones are also common, some of their phones even have custom ROMs and are easy to convert to the international variants, they have a lot of carrier bloatware pre-installed. The apps can be removed once the phone is rooted.

L: LG U+ phones aren't as common as the other two, some LG U+ devices also have have differences in terms of hardware compared to the other devices. They have around 9-10 bloatware apps installed, depending on the device. The apps can be removed once the phone is rooted.

FREQUENCY:The frequency mentioned below are the ones required for GPRS/EDGE to work on Pakistani networks, and 3G/4G (when they arrive)

2G (GPRS & EDGE): 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G (UMTS & HSPA): 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G (LTE): 800/850/900/1800/2100/2600MHz

Some Korean devices ending with the letter L (LG U+) have some differences in hardware and frequencies (depending on the device). 

TOOLS:

-ODIN V3.04 - DOWNLOAD



-Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE (SHV-E120S/K/L): This phone was the Galaxy S II made for South Korea. It has a T-DMB antenna, a 4.65" 720p HD screen, a 1.5GHz Dual-Core Scorpion Processor, Adreno 220 GPU and an 1850mAh battery. It has a few stable ROM's on XDA, click here to root your phone, flash a custom recovery or install a custom ROM.


-Samsung Galaxy S III LTE (SHV-E210S/K/L): 

The Korean variant of the Galaxy S III has the exact same specifications as the international model except for the RAM. The Korean model has 2GB of RAM (and usually 32GB of internal storage) whereas the international model comes with only 1GB RAM. Both the Korean and International version have received the Android 4.3 update. Like other Korean models, this can be easily spotted because of the T-DMB antenna on the top.

SOME USEFUL LINKS
Korean Galaxy S III Official Discussion Thread - XDA
Korean Galaxy S III ROM's, Kernels etc. - XDA
CF Auto-Root (SHV-E210S) - DOWNLOAD
CF Auto-Root (SHV-E210L) - DOWNLOAD
CF Auto-Root (SHV-E210K) - DOWNLOAD
CF Auto-Root (SHW-M440S) - DOWNLOAD

Hidden Network menu:

There is a hidden network menu on the Korean GS III, to access it dial this into your phones dialpad: 319712358You will be asked to enter a password, the password is different and depends on which carrier your phone belongs to.
Passwords:
LG U+: 0821
SK Telecom: 996412
KT Telecom: 774632

TOOLS:
LG Flash Tool - DOWNLOAD


LG USB Drivers - DOWNLOAD

LG IMEI Backup Tool (requires Google Translate) - HERESupported Models for Backup Tool:

LG LTE1: LU 6200, SU 640, P930, P935, P936LG LTE2: F160S / K / L
LG G2: F320 S / K / L


-LG Optimus G (F180S/K/L): Is identical to the LG Optimus G International version (E975). No difference except the T-DMB antenna.

Links to rooting/flashing recovery. 

Root your LG Optimus G (F180 only) by clicking here.Stock (KDZ) files for all LG Devices (including Optimus G) here.
Flash CWM/TWRP for LG Optimus G (F180 only) by clicking here.

-LG Optimus G Pro (F240S/K/L): Is exactly the same as its international variant. 

NOTE: You can only use FREEGEE if your device is running Android 4.1, this will not work with 4.2 Jellybean. 

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