Buying a Dual Sim phone

When buying a dual sim phone there are several things you must look out for.
This section applies to basic dual sim phones.  I will talk about smart phones later on in the blog.

Basic Phones

1.  Make sure the phone is a true dual sim, either you will be able to see 2 signal bars on the phone or it will say in the specs dual sim standby.  
2. Network type. 2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (often refered to as quad band) this will make sure its compatible with any GSM network anywhere in the world. Baisc 2G phones will not have any data connection so no mobile web surfing or twitter or facebook.

Basic Dual Sim Phone

If you look at the top left corner you will see two antennas labeled 1 & 2. You can see 1 has a signal but 2 has no signal, but in the centre you see the words Insert SIM2 so this is a true dual sim phone.
Proper dual sim phones will let you select which sim to use, and both sims can be active at the same time.

Price of Basic phones are about 15 to 40 Euros
Click on this link to see an example.






Budget Smart Phones.

Budget smart phones will normally have the Android operating system and have WiFi capability. But normally no 3G capability so no mobile data, you will need to use the WiFi data connection.
So 1 and 2 from above apply but also check:

1. Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n
2. Bluetooth 
3. SD card slot is nice to have as most budget smart phones have a limited memory.
4. At least a 1Ghz CPU though some budget ranges even come with a dual core CPU which is much better, as this is like having 2 CPUs 
5. Capacitive touch screen this may or may not be multi touch. Multi touch allows more than one finger on the screen. 
6. Make sure it can connect to Google Play. This is the Android app store
7. Android version should be 2.3 or higher. Most will be either 2.3, 4.0 or 4.2 . Current Android version as of 18 Feb 2014 is 4.4 
8. Camera probably won't be that great but ok for social networking. 

Picture showing dual sim graphic

This picture shows the 2 signal meters. These can be seen to the left of the battery icon on the right hand side of the screen.
 As there is no SIM card in any slot both meters show an X .

 Budget Smart phones will be about 45 to 100 Euros.
Examples can be found here.






Smart Phones. 

These will have the Android operating system and will have both 3G mobile data connection and WiFi capability. 

1. 3G: WCDMA 850/2100 MHz Conectivity.
2. Bluetooth
3. SD card up to 32Gb
4. At least a dual core 1Ghz CPU some my also have a seperate GPU (graphics processor unit), better if you like playing games. Some of the newer are quad (4xCPU) or even octo (8xcpu) core CPU's. 
5. Multi touch capacitive screen most will be at least three point touch.
6. Rear camera should be at least 3 to 5mp (mega pixels). Front camera can be anything upwards from 0.3mp 
7. Screen size at least 4 inches
8. Android version should be at least 4.0
9. Google Play connectivity.
10. GPS 

Many so called budget phones will have  some of the above features too. But be aware that unless its a dual core it will be slow. So Angry birds may not play that well on it. 
 Many of the top end dual sim phones will have 1 standard sim slot and the other will be what is called a micro sim slot. It is possible to trim a standard sim card to the micro format, but its probably safer to ask for a replacement micro sim card from your provider.

Dual sim Smart Phone

This picture shows a dual sim smart phone. SIM 1 and SIM 2 (this is the micro SIM card slot) . The card slot on the right is for a micro SD card. 

Smart phones range in price from 100 to 300 Euros. 





That's it for now.   More in March. 
The Tech Doctor