Quad Sim Quad Band phone now being sold

[PhotoJim]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

Well, you have had it a week now, anything to report?

I haven't had time to use it too much but so far it works quite well. The user interface requires a bit of learning. Right-menu * is the lock/unlock key combination, which I didn't see documented anywhere but managed to figure out by accident.

Call quality seems to be fine.

So far I'm pretty happy with it.

I'll throw my Rogers SIM into it this weekend and give it some use.

One thing I've noticed is that the signal strengths vary among my SIMs (even though there is only one 2G GSM provider here). I'm guessing that a couple of the accounts were parked on GSM 1900 and the other two on GSM 850.

The TV works reasonably well (if you have analog broadcasts). It's quite snowy in my home. The weather has been malicious here of late so I haven't tested it outdoors.

[rfranzq]

Can you see what band you are on in any way or turn off any bands?

When one does a manual search for networks does it have various symbols to say whether it is say: home, roaming or forbidden?

I have an A008 that shows a green house for home, a red circle for not permitted and blank for roaming on a list [where the green and red showup after a successful or not search.

This hypothesis of the 850 not working on SIMs 3 and 4 is interesting. If you were in the US with a T-Mobile or Truphone SIM you could never know. It could only be tested with an ATT or ATT MVNO SIM if you knew they did not have 1900 where you were testing.

[dg7feq]

Originally Posted by PhotoJim

One thing I've noticed is that the signal strengths vary among my SIMs (even though there is only one 2G GSM provider here). I'm guessing that a couple of the accounts were parked on GSM 1900 and the other two on GSM 850.

That is because all the GSM units have different antennas in the casing. Its the same with my dual sim phone. If you have two SIM of the same network inside you will often see different fieldstrength. Try to hold the phone different and you will maybe also see a reverse of the fielstrenghts (not as extreme as on the iPhone though )

Chris

[rfranzq]

Well, are you happy or sad with your purchase?
Does it work as expected?
Are there performance differences between SIM slots? [verified, highly confident, anecdotal]
Would you buy it again?
Are there any other quad SIM phones out there?

Thanks for responses.

[rfranzq]

Has any one heard or got a K160?

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

Has any one heard or got a K160?

I ordered a K160 last week. In a couple of weeks, we will see..........

[meir]

One problem to report. On the SIM slot 3 and 4 if you get any special letter like for example č, š, á ř in incoming sms messages. They will be shown on screen as chinese characters.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by PhotoJim

The user interface requires a bit of learning. Right-menu * is the lock/unlock key combination, which I didn't see documented anywhere but managed to figure out by accident.

Had that happen to me today. Luckily, I kind of knew where my fingers were before it happened.

[rfranzq]

Some observations about the K160 a latter model. It comes with a 1500 and a 1800 mAh batteries. When I put a Tru SIM card in slot 4 it would say nothing for the network or SIM 4. When in slot two it says T-Mobile. When an ATT MVNO SIM was in slot 2 it said the name of the SIM card MVNO but in slot 3 and 4 it says AT&T.

Some other stuff in response to comments by GadgetKen:

Originally Posted by GadgetKen

(occasionally get a repeated phantom reboot of some phones with the ekit sim; get it to disappear by just shutting off the phone fully and restarting it; don't have a clue why).

Not using an ekit card, I get a 'soft reboot' where the screen goes white and then black and then starts searching for the networks.

Originally Posted by GadgetKen

Found out why the dual IMSI sim ekit card didn't work that well and an easy solution. The third and fourth sim slots are more for just plain 2g voice and sms cards. The first and second sim card slots support full USSD commands, gprs web and system selection. Just moving the sim cards around (ekit into slot 2 instead of 4) suddenly made the ekit card much more stable, and could also get balance check/expiration date USSD commands working on my Digicel card.

That might be true on this one also. The SIM1 slot has 4 pairs [8] of electrical contacts vs. the other 3 have 3 pair [6]. What does that mean? Does one have to use menus to dial out with SIM 3 and 4?

Just got it today. Not much time to play with yet. Please look carefully at the SIM card holders before you break them trying to figure out how they work. It says lock and unlock on them.

The instructions are terrible. And not very well done.

[adam917]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

Some observations about the K160 a latter model. It comes with a 1500 and a 1800 mAh batteries. When I put a Tru SIM card in slot 4 it would say nothing for the network or SIM 4. When in slot two it says T-Mobile. When an ATT MVNO SIM was in slot 2 it said the name of the SIM card MVNO but in slot 3 and 4 it says AT&T.

Some other stuff in response to comments by GadgetKen:

Not using an ekit card, I get a 'soft reboot' where the screen goes white and then black and then starts searching for the networks.



That might be true on this one also. The SIM1 slot has 4 pairs [8] of electrical contacts vs. the other 3 have 3 pair [6]. What does that mean? Does one have to use menus to dial out with SIM 3 and 4?

Just got it today. Not much time to play with yet. Please look carefully at the SIM card holders before you break them trying to figure out how they work. It says lock and unlock on them.

The instructions are terrible. And not very well done.

Perhaps the 8-pin slot is an R-UIM slot (think SIM-look-alike card for CDMA phones - often used outside the Americas in the few non-western hemisphere countries that use CDMA)? I saw one on a Korean CDMA-only phone once.