&gt; <i>Has anyone been able to play with the phone and see if the bootloader is locked?</i><p>I haven&#x27;t, but if I were to hazard a guess, I&#x27;d say it&#x27;s locked. Even if it could be unlocked easily, it&#x27;s not likely you&#x27;ll find anyone developing for it. It&#x27;s not listed on the XDA Developers website, which is the authority on Android phone hacking.<p>&gt; <i>I also can&#x27;t figure out who the carrier on this phone is.</i><p>It&#x27;s in the first line of the article:<p>&quot;Walmart is now selling a <i>TracFone-branded</i> LG smartphone that costs $9.82 (it also ships free if your online order total tops $50).&quot;<p>TracFone is one of the many brands of conglomerate América Móvil, and sister brand of Walmart-sold Net10 Wireless and Straight Talk Wireless. They are MVNOs, leasing spectrum and bands from the major US carriers; I&#x27;ve used Straight Talk in the past on both AT&amp;T&#x27;s and T-Mobile USA&#x27;s networks. At one time TracFone was Sprint PCS only, but I believe you can get TracFone devices that use any of the major carrier networks now.