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Most new cell phones have their own standard installations of wallpaper, ringtones and games. My latest cell phone comes with four wallpapers, ten ringtones and five games standard. One gripe I have is that there are only four wallpaper designs to choose from. Every time I would flip open my phone (doing my impression of Captain Kirk with his communicator), I would get to see a background of only, well, colors. It was the best choice over the circles, windows and manufacturer logo. But best does not always mean good.

Although stationarily psychedelic, it wasn’t something I wanted to see on my phone every time I opened it. Sure, the preloaded wallpapers are generally sub-par, but you can’t blame the phone companies. How are they going to know what each person is going to want? Besides, with many downloads costing money, it is another way for people to make money off your cell phone.

There are countless websites offering great cell phone wallpapers, some for a price and others free of charge. Either way, you’re sure to get something you will want for your phone.

Free Wallpapers

With the costs of some cell phones these days, getting something for free would be really nice. Here’s where.

Free Mobile Fun
A warning greets you when you visit this website. No not an adult warning, but rather they only offer free content. So if you are looking to buy some stuff, you are going to have to go elsewhere.

There are several categories of free stuff including flags, cars and uploaded by user. The homepage lists new wallpapers for those wanting the latest and the top downloads for people wanting the most popular.

There are many resolution sizes available so there is sure to be one that will fit your phone. All you need to do is visit the website with your phone and put in the special code for the wallpaper or visit a specific webpage for the wallpaper picture and resolution size. It’s that simple.

Zedge
Zedge is a whole online community for mobile users. As such, you must register in order to download anything and it’s free to register. There are already over six million members and a forum to discuss a variety of topics including mobile downloads and troubleshooting problems. You can also create your own and upload them for other people to enjoy. That is, unless you want your creation all to yourself.

With about 20 categories and several thousand wallpapers per category on average, this website has one of the biggest selections of free wallpapers around. This is no doubt a result of the members uploading their own. You can search by selecting a term, resolution/phone, category and then order by criteria like alphabetical or most popular. It would be hard not to find wallpapers that will work with your phone.

Cellphone Wallpapers
Cellphone wallpapers offers more than just free cell phone wallpapers. You can also get ringtones, games, 3GP Videos and even mobile dating. There are several categories to choose from, but also sub categories if you are looking for something specific. For example, under the television category you can select to view only Family Guy or Simpsons wallpapers instead of fishing through the whole list within the category.

When you select your wallpaper of choice, you can get it in a number of ways. After you input your resolution, you can use the WAP ID, send directly to the phone or put in your email address and send it to your mailbox.

Wallpaper Base
This site appears to be about desktop wallpapers with a tagline “Your Source For Desktop Wallpapers”, but each wallpaper has the option of being sent to your cell phone. Just click the send to cell phone button to bring up the wallpaper. From there you can input your cell phone resolution size and hit enter when both numbers are in for it to generate picture at that size. You can either visit the webpage from your phone or download to your computer if you have the proper computer/phone hook up. This will save any airtime and browsing on your phone.

You can sign up for the website and become a member to converse in the forum or to upload your own wallpapers if you want. There is even a designer area to see how many wallpapers people submitted and the number of times the wallpapers were hit. There are multiple categories to choose from, including a top 50 category which is not surprisingly made up of almost all sexy girls.

Mobile Apples
This site has a lot of content but not for some of the bigger resolutions. Searching for larger sized wallpapers turned up no results. They still have a selection for the standard 176 x 220 though. By signing up you can upload your own wallpapers for others to view. If you want your wallpapers to be seen this would be a great place. Since many of the categories have a low picture count or have no wallpapers uploaded, yours would have a better chance of being seen and downloaded.

Find the wallpaper you want and get the WAP ID listed on the webpage. When you visit the website from your phone you enter the WAP ID to download right to your phone. There are also nifty screensavers to keep you staring at your phone screen even longer.

Pay Wallpapers

In case you feel guilty about getting something for free, here are some websites where you need to purchase your cell phone wallpapers.

Ringtone Jukebox
Don’t let the name of this website fool you, it does have a wide selection of wallpapers available to download. You can browse the wallpapers available from an assortment of categories, but you need to register and sign in before you can buy the wallpapers. They are all stamped “sample” to keep people from just grabbing the picture from the browsing page. If you like having “sample” slapped across your wallpaper, by all means try.

You need your country, service provider, cell phone number and phone model in order to register. This information is needed for them to send your purchase directly to your cell phone. I couldn’t find the pricing for the wallpapers, but the ringtones are $2.99. You can also test your cell phone’s compatibility by downloading sample wallpaper for free.

Lavalife Mobile
Lavalife has expanded from helping two people get together to helping a person get together with their true love, their cell phone. Their wallpaper selection is most interesting. Although they have several categories listed, they include wallpapers I never expected to see. There are many random ones(Kevin Bacon from Hollowman? Wow) that kept me flipping through the many pages for each category to see what else was included.

This is also a pay service, but you don’t pay per download. Instead you have a monthly fee of $9.99 that allows you to download unlimited wallpapers, real tones, poly tones and alerts. It amounts to 33 cents a day for the average month and is great for people who like to download frequently. There is no credit card needed to sign up, you only need your cell phone number and email address. The charge most likely goes to your cell phone bill.

SI Mobile
A website only a man would be interested in (okay, and some women), the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit site is the all women, all the time channel. What man wouldn’t want to have one of these beauties gracing their cell phone screen? If you’re lucky, one of them would already be your girlfriend so if someone asks you can tell them “It’s okay, she’s my girlfriend”.

Since the site is all gorgeous gals, there is no need for categories, but you can select to see all the wallpapers from your favorite model. Wallpapers are $1.99 per download and registration is not required although you can register a profile for member benefits. Be sure to get your significant other’s permission before downloading.

Wallpaper 4 Mobile
For all the fantasy, sci-fi and “spacey” people, this destination would be the best place to start. This site is full of very colorful and detailed wallpapers within the categories universe and plants, landscapes, fantasy and sci-fi. The selection is small but what is available is quite dazzling and unique. They are also not from any familiar TV show or video game. You won’t find anything Star Wars or Star Trek in the sci-fi section.

Wallpapers cost credits and the cost of the credits is based on the country. People in the US are looking at about 2 dollars for each wallpaper and Canadians about 3 dollars. I’m not sure why they needed to make it a little more complicated instead of just having a flat rate.

The Minds Eye
The Minds Eye has a wide selection of wallpapers that remind me of things you might see in an art museum. There are several 3D creation, fractal and photography wallpapers for your cell phone. The 3D creations are stunning and the fractals are extremely mesmerizing. There’s only a small selection of wallpapers for the cell phone but the site has more than just cell phone wallpapers. You can also get wallpapers for computers and PSPs.

You are required to sign up before you can download. There is a membership fee at registration with an introductory offer of six dollars for two months. Even if nothing catches your minds eye for your mobile device, there are free desktop wallpapers you might want to download for your computer.

Keep in Mind

No matter where you decide to get your wallpaper from, keep a few things in mind. When you’re paying for the wallpapers, find the one you know you’ll want first so you don’t keep downloading and racking up your bill. Do your research to make sure it will even work with your phone and resolution. Although most will, some may not. You don’t want to find out the hard way the one you want doesn’t work with your phone.

Whether free or paid, if you are downloading from your phone there may be some cost from your provider for browsing and downloading. The wallpapers may be free but getting them may not be so don’t go nuts downloading unless you have an unlimited plan.

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