New Apple 3Gs

Congrats on solving the issue. My two baht for future reference:

Happy English Martin - Spirit and blackra!n, though offering easy tethered jailbreaks, aren't compatible with a lot of the updates; i.e. if you use Spirit or Blackra!n future jailbreaks and unlocks are slow to come out, or don't work at all (ios4 being an example - citing from devteam blog). I always recommend using Pwnage Tool because of this. Documentation indicates the phones need to be tethered when the battery dies too, though on a previous 3GS w/Blackra!n I didn't have this issue. Don't know why.

Hardware unlock - I've never heard of a hardware unlock. I did Google it and some YouTube videos appeared (didn't watch them), so maybe it's possible. If it is...it could be a healthy market for all those bricked phones.

The german / cycling through languages is normal, for both factory unlocked and locked phones.

MHM - In case something goes heywire when you do your next update, would be good to note bootrom: Settings> General> About> Model on the iPhone. Or on a Mac in DFU mode Applications> Util> System Profiler. Also firmware under the same area and store on Cydia. Not saying they didn't change out hardware, I'm just skeptical.

Jailbreaks / unlocks are easy, when they work right. They're a nightmare, even for the technically inclined, when they don't. And it always seems at some point, something doesn't go right.

On another note, wasn't VOIP a feature that could be used for multi-tasking on ios4? Skype shuts down with a quickness when trying to do other tasks.