Android dual SIM handsets - recommendations and reviews

[GadgetKen]

Originally Posted by petkow

Hello everybody. I just thought I would reawaken this oldish thread as my current multi-handset setup used to work perfectly well up until a few days ago when a rather unfortunate incident of a bottle breaking in my bag left one of those phones covered in rather nice brandy and rather dead!

Has anyone got any recent experiences with any half-decent dual-SIM or triple-SIM android phones?

Sorry to hear about the brandy drowning of your phone. Only a waterproof phone like a Sonim would have survived that scenario (there's also some dual sim waterproof phones out there).

Currently using a Blu D230 Rave dual sim handset as my primary phone. H2O(AT&T) in the 3g/gsm slot and Telna in the GSM slot. Works nicely but the screen is only 3 inches and it's a single core processor running an older version of Android. It's getting a bit dated and I need a larger screen, a better camera, more memory capability, and more 3g slots.

Upgrading shortly to a Feiteng H9503 triple sim handset that is being shipped by FedEx from Amazon. Should be in my hands early next week. Slot 1 is a microsim slot with 3g 850/2100 mhz and quad band gsm. Slot 2 is the same specs with a mini sim rather than the micro. Slot 3 is quad band gsm mini-sim only. Has Jellybean 4.2, a dual core processor, ability to take 32 gb micro sd cards, and a five inch screen.

Really wanted 3g in 2 slots so I can run:
1. My Telna(T-Mo USA plus cheap foreign roaming) sim chip in slot one (needs 3g WCDMA in some countries like Canada where no GSM roaming agreements). Decent foreign roaming rates and I like the postpaid billing with no long-term contract to my credit card (no worries about prepaid balances evaporating like some other roaming sim cards that went belly up in the past).
2. H2O/AT&T sim chip in slot two (better chances of completed calls in big US cities on 3G). Nickel a minute calls.
3.And a soon to be activated LycaMobile US/(T-Mobile and limited foreign roaming) sim chip in the third slot. Two cents a minute calls.

Data will be fed in most circumstances by wifi from one of 2 mifi devices (one is AT&T postpaid, and the other is FreedomPop/Sprint free service) or from wifi hotspots. Advantage of this setup is that both of the mifi devices are LTE so it will give a higher speed data connection than the new phone is capable of by itself. As a backup I will program in the APN for the Telna sim chip.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by GadgetKen

Upgrading shortly to a Feiteng H9503 triple sim handset .... Slot 1 is a microsim slot with 3g 850/2100 mhz and quad band gsm. Slot 2 is the same specs with a mini sim rather than the micro. Slot 3 is quad band gsm mini-sim only.

Really wanted 3g in 2 slots so I can run:
1. My Telna(T-Mo USA plus cheap foreign roaming) sim chip in slot one (needs 3g WCDMA in some countries like Canada where no GSM roaming agreements). Decent foreign roaming rates and I like the postpaid billing with no long-term contract to my credit card (no worries about prepaid balances evaporating like some other roaming sim cards that went belly up in the past).
Data will be fed .... from one of 2 mifi devices

Saw your related [& vague---no details/specs]post on HoFo.
You are not planning to use Telna for 3G in the US, are you?
Looking forward for your reports and review.

[GadgetKen]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

Saw your related [& vague---no details/specs]post on HoFo.
You are not planning to use Telna for 3G in the US, are you?
Looking forward for your reports and review.

Description of phone in the Amazon US listing: http://www.amazon.com/FEITENG-H9503-...keywords=h9503 Specifications are a bit fuzzy like many Shenzhen phones. From what I've heard the rear camera is really 5 megapixel interpolated up to 8 megapixels. Some dealers also claim it can take a max of 16 gb for a micro sd expansion card where others say 32 gb. Permanent memory is only 512 mb ram and 4 gb rom. The display is big but doesn't have the resolution of the name brands that it's copying. But it has unique features like triple sim capability and the price is very good.

Don't know if Telna works in 3g mode in the US. It's a moot point anyway:
-Neither the Blu dual sim phone I use currently nor the Feiteng phone in transit to me cover the T-Mo 3g frequencies (1700 AND 2100 Mhz or limited 1900 mhz refarmed spectrum as result of the failed merger with AT&T). 3G frequencies on both handsets are 850 or 2100 mhz.
-Also the Telna US T-Mo voice rates are 8 cents out and five cents in. Lyca is only two cents a minute.
What I really need Telna for is travel outside the US where they offer competitive rates. While T-Mo does offer cheap international roaming now...that's only for $50+/month plans. Telna offers a more practical solution for the occasional international traveler like myself. Certainly was cheaper in St. Maarten where I could place Telna calls on Digicel Antilles Francaises for a quarter a minute instead of the hotel room rate of $6 for the first minute and $4.50 for additional minutes.
Telna would make sense for me for US backup data purposes and international primary data purposes for the new phone because it's an easy to set up APN. I don't care if the connection is only Edge or GPRS in the US since my 2 mifi devices are both LTE with fallback to slower standards. It's no big deal to put a mifi device in a jacket pocket or in a small camera case on my belt.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by GadgetKen

Don't know if Telna works in 3g mode in the US.
It's a moot point anyway:

Well, if Telna's agreement with T-Mobile is what Piranha uses
for T-Mobile in USA then it is a yes for 3G on T-Mobile.
The Piranha UK phone number I have says it is a Telna phone number.
[For what it is worth Piranha also uses AT&T and gets 3G on it also.]
I live in southern California so yes I am in a refarmed area.

[petkow]

Upon reading more about Zopos I think their newest offering is actually the ZP998 which has a whopping 8 cores! I see it is available for around 219 Euros. http://chinamobilemag.com/zopo-zp998...tphone-review/ Interestingly, this one is confirmed to have 3G radio modules for both SIMs. I am sure the 8 cores are significantly helping with that.

[Bossman]

The Moto G dual sim is not bad - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00I34...&robot_redir=1

[inquisitor]

@petkow
I have actually given away my Zopo C2 recently due to its very bad Wifi and GPS sensitivity about which I reported a while back on another forum: http://forum.zopomobileshop.com/thread-1314-1-1.html (note this post showing internal photos)

Though my device probably showed exceptionally bad performance you should be aware that besides serial dispersion resulting from wide quality tolerances at Zopo they use quite primitive monopole antennae for Wifi, GPS and BT instead of sophisticated duopole ones. You will not necessarily need to wait 5 minutes to acquire a satfix under a clear obstacle-free sky like I had to, but expect a Zopo to underperform quality brands. Further shortcomings of Zopo are that there's no 5GHz Wifi support and so far none of their phones supports GLONASS which could dramatically improve TTFF as well as accuracy.

In any case you should better order your device from a seller in your country so you can return it hassle-free, should you experience similar issues.

Regarding the ZP998 another advantage over the ZP980/C2 is that it supports UMTS on 900/1900/2100MHz, while the ZP990/C2 comes with the rather useless 850/2100MHz combination (at least for Europeans). Though I doubt that the ZP998 actually supports 3G for both SIM cards simultaneously, as you say. Instead it would rather have the ability to assign the 3G-capable radio module to any of the SIMs from the menu like I described it in post #9 of this thread.

[petkow]

Originally Posted by Bossman

The Moto G dual sim is not bad - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00I34...&robot_redir=1

Yes... the Moto G is a great phone for the little money it costs...The funny thing is that is exactly what my network offered me as a replacement for my brandy inebriated phone! Unfortunately the networks here in Europe will never give you a dual SIM handset hence why I need to buy one outright.

Originally Posted by inquisitor

@petkow
I have actually given away my Zopo C2 recently due to its very bad Wifi and GPS sensitivity about which I reported a while back on another forum: http://forum.zopomobileshop.com/thread-1314-1-1.html (note this post showing internal photos)

Though my device probably showed exceptionally bad performance you should be aware that besides serial dispersion resulting from wide quality tolerances at Zopo they use quite primitive monopole antennae for Wifi, GPS and BT instead of sophisticated duopole ones. You will not necessarily need to wait 5 minutes to acquire a satfix under a clear obstacle-free sky like I had to, but expect a Zopo to underperform quality brands. Further shortcomings of Zopo are that there's no 5GHz Wifi support and so far none of their phones supports GLONASS which could dramatically improve TTFF as well as accuracy.

In any case you should better order your device from a seller in your country so you can return it hassle-free, should you experience similar issues.

Thanks. It looks like I will not touch that phone with a barge-pole then. I did read about problems with the GPS elsewhere too and someone struggling to pick up many satellites.

Regarding the ZP998 another advantage over the ZP980/C2 is that it supports UMTS on 900/1900/2100MHz, while the ZP990/C2 comes with the rather useless 850/2100MHz combination (at least for Europeans). Though I doubt that the ZP998 actually supports 3G for both SIM cards simultaneously, as you say. Instead it would rather have the ability to assign the 3G-capable radio module to any of the SIMs from the menu like I described it in post #9 of this thread.

I am very interested in this phone, but perhaps it is a lot to be paying for a dubious brand. Also I am not sure I really need 8 cores, as not very many apps exist that can really make use of them. I am not much of a hard-core gamer! None the less, it seems a good phone with good reviews.

Though you are right that I should try and buy it at a local dealer, I saw it available on e-fox at a very attractive price but to be honest their prices confuse me. I have never used that site and was wondering if you or anyone has experience with them? I think they also ship to Spain. Why is the same phone listed twice at two different prices
here and here ?? Is that difference just the delivery charge?

I have also been looking at the other end of the spectrum and thinking about picking up something cheap and cheerful. (you never know where my bottle breaking luck takes me). I see that e-fox is selling the CUBOT P9 dual SIM for only 65 euros today! Anyone know anything about this phone?

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by petkow

Thanks. It looks like I will not touch that phone with a barge-pole then. I did read about problems with the GPS elsewhere too and someone struggling to pick up many satellites.

There are complaints about bad GPS reception for the ZP998, too.

Why is the same phone listed twice at two different prices
here and here ?? Is that difference just the delivery charge?

The first one comes from China while the later and more expensive one is being dispatched from Germany ("versandkosten frei aus DE" = "free shipping from Germany"). Actually in the cheaper offer there's a button labeled "aus DE versendet kaufen" ("buy dispatched from Germany") which takes you to the later item.

I have also been looking at the other end of the spectrum and thinking about picking up something cheap and cheerful. (you never know where my bottle breaking luck takes me). I see that e-fox is selling the CUBOT P9 dual SIM for only 65 euros today! Anyone know anything about this phone?

Never got my hands on that one but 512MB RAM would be a showstopper for me and I don't see any point in accepting the bulkiness of a 5" display when it comes with such a low resoution (540*960px) unless you are visually impaired.
If I was to buy a dual SIM handset again, I would definitely consider the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 DuoS (G7102) which supports 5GHz Wifi, GLONASS and quadband UMTS (850/900/1900/2100) and is made in Samsung's typical high build quality.
By the way, I think FullHD (1920*1080px) is totally pointless on a 5" screen as the increased pixel density over 1280*720px is far from any human eye's visual capabilites (at least if you hold the device in a usual distance from your eye of a foot or so) and so it is a total waste of resources to produce these displays which then require exponentially more CPU/GPU power to render the higher resolution frames and so impair battery life. Indeed I could not really take notice when downgrading from a 1920*1080px@5" screen to 1280*720px@4.7". But 960*540 is definitely too little for a 5" device.

P.S.: Next time just pour the brandy from the bottle into your stomache, so it can't flood your phone anymore. However this may entail some new risks for your handset.

[UKSTEVE]

I can heartily recommend the Cubot GT90 for around £60.00 on Amazon

It's dual SIM and dual core (1.2MHz). Camera is quite basic at 3.2 MP - but otherwise the handset is snappy performer.

Android 4 inch screen - very nice.

+Steve