lizzie

Hello,
I've read through this forum but still don't have the answer, so I've decided to post the following:
I am currently working in Austria but go back to the US regularly. I am looking for a dual sim phone, where I can place a European sim (exchangeable from one country to the next) in one slot and a US sim in the other. I am looking for a functional, affordable phone that is, if possible, fairly small. I definitely do not need the latest bells and whistles.
After much research, the Moto G5 seems like a possibility. However I'm concerned that if I buy it in Europe, it won't accommodate a US sim and I'll be stuck once I land. I would appreciate your comments and suggestions.
Thank you.

Cozmo456

It depends on the frequencies supported.

I use the OnePlus 6T which is top of the line in features but not in price. For a bargain, my wife has the Nokia 6.1 which is also great. Oh and they are selling the OnePlus 6 (previous model) at a big discount right now.

lizzie

Ah, unfortunately I am not an engineer. By frequencies, do you mean GSM and CDMA? The issue is that I am looking for an unlocked phone which would support both. Is this feasible? Thanks!

TWA884

LTE bands. You want a phone that supports LTE bands that are used in both the EU and the US.

For example, my Samsung S9+ supports the following bands: B1(2100), B2(1900), B3(1800), B4(AWS), B5(850), B7(2600), B8(900), B12(700), B13(700), B14(700), B17(700), B18(800), B19(800), B20(800), B25(1900), B26(850), B28(700), B29(700), B30(2300), B34(2010), B39(1880), B38(2600), B39(1900), B40(2300), B41(2500), B46(5200), B66(AWS-3) and B71(600).

Cozmo456

Many brands separate phones with North American or European bands. Others are universal. Like my OnePllus 6T. And the reason I have it.

wxman22

Search on Amazon for "Dual-SIM, unlocked phone" there are many choices. Most of the dual SIM are NOT for the US market, which means no USA warranty. But I have bought a few over the years and am very happy. They work well in USA and outside.

My favorite at the moment is the Samsung J7 Pro. I like it better than my S7 and it's tru dual SIM, as it has slots for two SIMS plus the micro SD card (My S7 only takes 2 SIMS if I don't use SD slot)..

Phone must be unlocked.
Most of world is GSM, USA is both GDM (T-Mobile and AT&T) and CDMA which is incompatible (though some phones have both) and is Verizon and Sprint.

So my ohone now has USA SIM and Vietnamese SIM. I can/make get calls or texts on one or both. Works great.

deniah

Band incompatibility is pretty much a thing of the past.

I've used "US" and "International" editions of GSM phones (when a model is produced in both) , for the last few generations of phones, and I get good signal in Europe, US, and the rest of the world.

Net effect is I've really stopped paying attention to supported bands and matching it up to potential carriers at destinations. Dont need to anymore. Most recent- and current- gen Dual-SIM cards should be the same. I'm using a Huawei phone and it's currently running an AT+US dual-SIM setup.

There's nothing special to a SIM to make it incompatible. There's only form factor (most are nano and if they arent, they can be cut down to fit) and software lock (if you own your phone outright it should be unlocked).

ROW2Aisle

The Moto series (E, G, C etc.,) unlocked international dual SIM versions have worked for me in several countries; they are relatively inexpensive and available on Amazon

lizzie

Thank you for all these helpful replies. Deniah, may I ask you which Huawei phone you are using?

der_saeufer

Until it bricked while flashing an update (probably my fault...), I had a European dual-SIM Moto G5 as a backup/visitor phone. Great phone, especially for the €120 I paid for it. But it doesn't support all of the US's LTE bands. With the reduced congestion on HSPA (3.5g) networks these days, though, it was never an issue--I rarely even noticed the speed difference.

A couple things to consider:

• if you're using Verizon or Sprint in the US, there are very, very few dual-SIM phones with CDMA support. Without CDMA support, the phone will not work at all on those networks. For AT&T and T-Mo, this is not an issue.
• There are only five HSPA bands in most of the world, and nearly every smartphone you can buy new supports all of them, so the worst case is that on the "other continent" you top out at 5-8Mbps, which is still fast enough to watch Netflix.
• As deniah says, band compatibility issues are becoming a thing of the past, but where they pop up tends to be in phones intended only for a particular market--especially dual-SIM phones that will never be sold in North America. Generally speaking, the nicer and more expensive the phone, the more "foreign" LTE bands it supports.
• If your use case is one American and one European SIM, since you'll never use them both at the same time it's probably better and cheaper just to get a single-SIM phone and carry a paperclip to swap SIMs. Like most electronics, phones tend to be significantly cheaper in the US, with the caveat that Europe sometimes gets some lower-end phones like the original Moto G5 that never make it to the US market.

Silver Fox

I use the Moto G5 (bought on Amazon UK) in the UK and US and have both SIMs in there and have never encountered an issue. The comment above about LTE/4G is right. But it matters not to me as mostly I am on wifi and not a gamer/heavy video watcher so if I am not on a fast network I don't notice. Pages may take a while to load but again I am not really fussed.

getmethere

I purchased the Moto G5 international version on Amazon, version XT1671. Currently a steal for ~USD150 at Amazon.

It has worked perfectly in the US with T-mobile at LTE speed, and in several countries on three continents. Some dual sim phone reviews at Amazon complained about getting only 2G/3G speed in the US, but not LTE.

My G5 review is here:

Best dual sim phone?

Here is a site to compare phones side by side, including supported bands.

https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_g5-8454.php

gfunkdave

This is actually not true anymore. Everyone uses LTE these days, which is a single, unified standard. The only issue is to ensure that the phone supports the LTE bands you need in both places. In general, as mentioned above, you can just get any decent phone and it will support bands in use in both places but some carriers are rolling out service in bands that are semi-unique to them. If you happen to try to use a phone that doesn't support that band in an area the carrier is using it, you will experience degraded service.

Of course, this will still be an issue for a 2G or 3G phone.

tmiw

Sprint is actually only starting to roll out VoLTE in selected markets, so CDMA support is still important for them. This might be moot in a year or two, however, assuming that the federal government ultimately allows the merger with T-Mobile to go through.

deniah

been using the P20 Pro, and its fine across multiple states, connecting to ATT, TMobile, and using A1 in Austria and roaming across EU