How to Download Free Wallpapers for the Sprint or Virgin Mobile LG Rumor Touch

Wallpapers are what make our phones our own. With the LG Rumor Touch, one of the first disappointing hurdles was finding out that I could not seem to get wallpapers from the free wallpaper sites peppered all over the internet. Instead, Virgin Mobile wanted me to buy them at a few bucks a pop from them. No way!

Its true! You can download free wallpapers for your Virgin Mobile and Sprint LG Rumor Touch phones. There is a way around the network silliness, and I am going to show you how to do it! Read on!

Virgin Mobile's LG Rumor Touch is locked down when it comes to ringtones, wallpaper, apps, etc. in order to encourage the owner to buy from Virgin Mobile. Sprint owners may have an easier time, but in about a year of fielding questions from users of this phone, I know that Sprint users face many of the exact same challenges and frustrations as Virgin Mobile customers.

The fact that the networks want us to buy from them is somewhat understandable. This is especially true if we considering how much Virgin Mobile's service costs--A mere $25 dollars a month for 300 min. and unlimited text/mms/web.

Its like getting "free admission" because the establishment thinks you will spend a bunch of money once you are inside. This is the same principle.

One particularly annoying aspect of this lockdown is being unable to use internet images for wallpapers (or should I say, "almost" unable). It is impossible to do in the built in browser and requires using the third party web browser, Opera Mini.

This hub is a tutorial on how to "work-around" the networks lock-down system to use images from the internet as phone wallpaper.

In other words, this article is your ticket to free wallpapers for your LG Rumor Touch -- We are far past the days of being forced to pay for them.

In order to focus this tutorial, I assume a few things. Please make sure that before continuing, these four things are true of you. If they are not true, then please Google your way to knowledge and then come back and read the rest of the article.

1. You have the Opera Mini 5.1 browser installed on your LG Rumor Touch. Any number before 5.1 will not work the same way. All versions after 5.1 should work.

2. You use a microSD card in your phone.
3. You know how to navigate your phone and Opera Mini.
4. The image you want to use as your wallpaper is a JPEG.

The process to use internet images as wallpaper on your phone is fairly short.

1. Load Opera Mini.
2. Find an image you want as your wallpaper (if you use Google images, make sure you find the original photo).
3. Hold your finger on the image until the Opera menu pops up.
4. Select "Save Image...".
5. Scroll the folder list to the one titled "Memory Card". This will save the image to the microSD card.
6. In your phone, navigate to MASS STORAGE---->FILE MANAGER
7. Scroll down and you will see your image saved on the first screen of your microSD file manager (for those advanced users, I mean at the root level).
8. Create a folder in your microSD card titled something like "Wallpapers" and move the file you saved into that folder (you can do this by selecting the image, MORE-->MOVE-->MEMORY CARD-->WALLPAPER folder ).
9. Once moved, select the image and press MORE-->ASSIGN-->WALLPAPER . If the image is large, the phone will give you some options on how to fit it to your main screen.
10. To delete or see your "Assigned" wallpapers, you may go to SETTINGS-->DISPLAY-->WALLPAPER-->ASSIGNED MEDIA . Once "Assigned", the image is copied to your phone. If something happens to the file on the microSD card, your wallpaper should remain.

To get started, head over to

Downloadwap.com

In the regular Virgin Mobile provided NetFront and in the Opera Mini Internet browser, most of the content on DownloadWap is blocked for download. The wallpapers, however, are not.

Make sure the that wallpapers are the JPEG ones as opposed to the GIF ("animated backgrounds"). Your LG Rumor Touch cannot read GIF files

Once you've selected your wallpaper category of choice and a good looking wallpaper in the list in the list of options:

1) Click on the wallpaper.

2) Tthe top right corner has the option to change the size of the wallpaper. For the Rumor Touch, you want -(240x320).

3) Select "View/Save Wallpaper" link below image

4) Scroll down and press the SAVE button on the website or press and hold down on the image until the Opera menu pops up asking if you want to save the image. Either way woks.

If you know someone who owns a smartphone, Zedge may be the place that they get their ringtones and wallpapers. Usually, this will be from an app, but Zedge also has a mobile site that your LG Rumor Touch will have access to through Opera Mini. All of your Android friends use Zedge, and I highly recommend you do as well.

How to do it:

1. Go to Zedge's mobile site in Opera Mini - m.zedge.net

2. Now that you are there, you want to set your phone type to LG [first screen] and on the second screen select "R" and then "Rumor Touch". On the third screen, confirm that you do indeed want to select the LG Rumor Touch by clicking "Yes, let's begin".

3. On the category screen, the only one you care about is "Wallpapers" -- Click on it!

4.Pick a wallppaer out of the list and click on it.

5. Now locate the "View / Save Wallpaper" link and select it.

6. Lastly, long press the selected wallpaper to bring up the Opera Mini "Save image" option and remember to scroll down the menu "save to" locations until you get to "Memory Card". Download and Viola!