so I got a barely used phone from my buddy. He had thought it was stolen just after buying it, but has recently found it and given it to me because it has a little port for a SIM card. Since I have T-mobile I thought that I would simply have to root and unlock the phone via some online tutorial and pop the SIM in, but to no avail. I can't find much info on the phone and it seems to only run CDMA. Nothing happens when I insert my SIM card. It is the ZTE Engage V8000. It is a Muve Music phone from Cricket.
I was wondering if I could just put Ubuntu for Phones on it and it would detect my SIM. Would that work? I feel like Ubuntu for Phones might be thrown out there enough for it to work. If not, how can I get my SIM card to work on the Android OS? Do I need to install a whole new operating system? Is there any way that I can use this phone? My current phone doesn't seem to have a strong enough antenna for my area. It's a cheapy knock-off from Hong Kong so anything else would work. Any help is much appreciated