Quad Sim Quad Band phone now being sold

[GadgetKen]

And I found it even for less.

Buy Flying F160 - World's First Four SIM, Four Standby Mobile Phone at a great price!

It's $75 in choice of black or red. $5 less with online coupon by email list. Postage to US varies from $8 to $27 depending on carrier and service class; will vary for other countries. Never used this vendor before so you may want to do a quick background check.

[meir]

Buy F160 Quad Sim Quad Standby TV Java Phone with Qwerty Keyboard Black compare price at pandawill.com

Here is one and I have used this shop before.

There was one in focalprice.com as well, but cant find it now. Sorry here is link http://www.focalprice.com/MHH72B/FGF...ard_Black.html
This is very reliable shop. Use it almost every month.

Or when in HK go to SSP.

[GadgetKen]

A couple of usage comments on the phone now that I've played with it more.

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.

Now for the really neat thing..the phone runs full Java apps. Downloaded some free mobile games over my MacBook Pro and a Verizon/Millenicom key, transfered the files via bluetooth, installed them to the 4 gb microsd card rather than the phone memory (phone memory is very small but it will take microsd cards up to 16 gb). Both games I downloaded (a pinball game and an Alice in Wonderland game) run perfectly.

Also has a built in Microsoft Word program and an Excel type spreadsheet program.

Analog TV set does work. Got 3 different low power Spanish language network channels when I tested it briefly. Tuner is very sensitive but needs to be held just right to get a clear color picture.

[rfranzq]

Thanks for the update. Did it say anything in the instructions about which slots might be better for different uses? How good are the insturctions?

Originally Posted by GadgetKen

Analog TV set does work. Got 3 different low power Spanish language network channels when I tested it briefly. Tuner is very sensitive but needs to be held just right to get a clear color picture.

Low power analog TV stations are really low power. I suspect that if you drove 10 miles from where you test, results would be different. No stations or better reception.

[GadgetKen]

The instructions look like they were made for multiple phones, and they change them slightly for every model. Nothing about the sim slot uses. The sales materials on the web did say that it's not meant for 3g sim cards so I expected some minor issues.

Apparently putting the ekit sim card into slot 2 instead of slot 3 or 4 *greatly* increased battery life. Have full battery strength bars after 12 hours of standby and only a few minutes of calls. The choice of sim card location I think depends on whether the chip is more advanced and if you need bluetooth headset functionality (BT works best with slot 1). I put the AT&T/Jolt MVNO chip in slot 1, ekit in slot 2 (for phone stability and battery life), Digicel in slot 3 (more just to see if I have text messages in the US, voice is expensive off the Digicel regional network), and the T-Mobile/Tuyo in slot 4. When outside the US I probably would switch the Digicel chip to the first position so it has all the bells and whistles functionality.

On the low power analog, yeah it's working with just a scrap of a signal. I could attach it to a DTV box and/or a rooftop antenna for more channels, but then it would lose it's portability. Will see if analog broadcasts are still in Grand Cayman when I'm there the beginning of next year. Wonder if it will also pick up Cuba just to the north or Jamaica to the south (sometimes unusual signal skip in the Caribbean). Room will have over the air or cable tv, but curious what the tv tuner on the phone will pick up by itself.

[meir]

Ken thanks for update. Look much better than expected. Just ordering 2 phones.

[PhotoJim]

I've ordered one, too. We still have full-power analog TV here in Canada (in fact, my province doesn't even have any digital or HDTV broadcasts at all - you need cable or satellite to get them) so I can give the TV functionality a good test.

[GadgetKen]

After 22 hours of standby yesterday and today plus 4 phone calls and some java games and TV set watching, I've got about a 40% charge left on the battery. Will charge it up tonight. With the higher capacity battery on order it should be even better.

Tried adding more low power analog tv stations near my office (closer to a major city than my home), and got 2 English speaking tv channels (one a CBS affiliate and the other a CW affiliate) plus the 3 Spanish speaking tv channels I previously had loaded in. Main reason for getting the phone was just having all my sim cards active simultaneously, the analog tv set, dual cameras, fm radio video/audio recorders, and java capability are just nice extras. Plus I don't have to pay fees for using any of those extra features.

Added some more Java games including an Atari game set that includes Asteroids, Centipede and Tank, as well as PacMan and Tetris. Also put in a java based freeware French/English dictionary. Might also add a multi-language phrase dictionary I saw online. Add Java applications by a bluetooth transfer from my MacBook Pro that uses a Millenicom/Verizon modem.

[Roti2000]

These are great posts. Very informative. I've read about these sorts of phones, but have never seen/used multiple SIM phones before.

Here's the question, on the aliexpress site this phone is advertised as "quad standby."

I am assuming this means that you turn on the phone and have to choose ONE of your SIMs for the phone to monitor? If someone calls on the other SIM numbers does it go to voicemail?

I have heard of "active dual SIM" phones before, which I take to mean that you are monitoring both SIM numbers simultaneously, i.e. assuming you are not on a call, you can get calls from either SIM line.

I would really like one of the latter--I'm headed to Mexico and I already have a TELCEL Amigo with free incoming, but I wanted to get an AT&T Prepaid US SIM to get the occasional US call.

I am assuming that the "standby" phones don't work this way.

If anyone can clarify just how the multi-sim phones work, that would be greatly appreciated!

[GadgetKen]

The number of sims listed as standby are the number of lines that can be monitored for receive at the same time. On some phones it equals the number of sims, on a few multi-sim phones, it may be less.

If you are receiving a phone call on any of these standby sims, then it would ring and you would answer. However, some phones only have bluetooth on one of these sims (in the case of my dual sim MFU v200 it's on both, on the case of this quad sim phone it is only advertised as bluetooth on line one). Answering from the handset without bluetooth would be on any of these lines. Likewise with a wired handset.

For placing phone calls, there are multiple send buttons on the phone. If I bring up my phonebook (a composite of all sims with a sim card number indicator next to each phone number), I can then specify which sim I want to dial the call. Or I can manually dial a number and then press the send 1/2 or send 3/4 button to specify I want to call with one of those sims (and then specify which of those 2 sims I want to dial from a menu either on the touchscreen or with the directional keypad).

Note that not all sims may work in all countries, and rates will vary by country used. In the US, all 4 sims would be active for me (although roaming rates using the Digicel card would be high). When I am in Grand Cayman early next year, the Digicel and Ekit sims would be cheapest for calls, while the AT&T/Jolt and T-Mobile/Tuyo would only work in emergency call mode since they are prepaid sim chips without roaming in that country.