NOKIA PHONES - 3G/4G Compatibility

[PETERTHEEATER]

I have (had!) a Nokia 225 phone (Nokia Model Number RM-1011) used with an AIS 12Call pre-paid SIM which I have had for at least eight years. Last week I received repeated SMS from AIS that I needed to 'port my phone to 3G as soon as possible' to avoid losing my telephone number. The phone is just ten months old, cost ThB 1800 and although basic is all I needed.

My wife took the phone to a main AIS Shop and they said it wouldn't work with 3G/4G and so took it in part exchange for a new LAVA 'smart phone and new SIM but with my old telephone number transferred to the new SIM. Said that it could not be activated for three days. Returned my original SIM saying that I could use it for that three days in another phone.

Accepting that I was sold a lemon by a NOKIA shop and that the 225 is not compatible, my question to you technophobes who know this stuff is, why is my wife's second phone, an old NOKIA 3110 Classic still in operation using AIS Pre-paid SIM and NOT receiving whicSMS warning that upgrade is required? I should have thought that her 3110 that is at least ten years old would be obsolescent.

[Chicog]

I would take a wait-and-see approach. I believe they are turning off 2G.

[xylophone]

I sympathise with you having been through something similar just recently.

Firstly though your wife's old Nokia 3110 classic is not 3G compliant and sooner or later if she is with AIS, the service will be discontinued (or so they say, although a couple of other providers have suggested that they will take over the 2G network for a while, etc etc).

I did have an old Nokia phone here which I traded in with AIS (for 100 baht) and received a 3G compliant phone which seems to be made by "Lava" and although it is a nice phone, it does have a problem when trying to create messages in as much as the system used requires you to complete several steps to get in and out of the capital letters situation every time you need to do so. All right if you want to send messages with everything in lowercase, but that doesn't suit for me.

The other ones available, including "iMobile Hitz" also do the same and are not as user-friendly as the old Nokia's..........so I have been searching as to where I can get one of the Nokia 208 phones, which are 3G compliant, are the "candy bar" design and are user-friendly with regard to the capital letters situation. So far I have found that I cannot get them in Thailand even though they were sold here under a TrueMove scheme a couple of years ago, because they are no longer available, however I can purchase them online from India or China and that's what I may end up doing.

I don't want my e-mails to follow me around, I don't want a qwerty keyboard design, I don't need many/any apps because all I want is something small and handy upon which I can make or receive telephone calls, so iPhones or the like are a no go.

[PETERTHEEATER]

Thanks xylophone. Your requirements seem to match mine. From what I can find, the redundancy of older phones appears to be related to the radio frequencies but both Nokia models that I stated are dual band so should be OK for 3G? All very confusing. My wife, who is completely non-tech (that's not a criticism) seems confident that her old Nokia will go on forever so she is in for a shock. She has an expensive Samsung smartphone for posing but the candybar Nokia is her main comms device.

My LAVA phone is not yet activated but I have played around with it to learn the features. Made in India. Disappointed in the display which varies in brightness as it is angled. Happlily, I was able to delete pre-loaded apps that I don't want namely Twitface, Faceache Linebacker yet there are some in the Running apps which cannot be removed. But that's thread drift.

I have a 3 year old Samsung smartphone but as with all of these devices the display is unreadable in outdoor light conditions so the LAVA will join it in a drawer and I will go back to two empty can and a length of string!

[xylophone]

Happy to help PTE, however I am indebted to another poster on here, "RichCor" for his help in understanding all this rigmarole as regards mobiles.

In reference to your post above, even if your Nokia is dual band it doesn't necessarily mean that it will work on 3G (AIS) and the only way to find out is to Google your particular mobile and look at the specification to see if it states that it is 3G (GSM 3) compatible!

As I said, I currently have the Lava and the iMobile Hitz models, however they are not exactly what I want so I will look at ordering the Nokia 208 from overseas, but before I do that I will try out the spare phone a friend of mine has which is a Nokia C3-01 and see if that works.

[goldmagpie]

Nokia C3-01 has all but one of the 3G bands the Nokia N8 has. That one does work well with True currently, though a True shop said it wouldn't work on internet. It does.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_c3_01_touch_and_type-3525.php

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n8-3252.php

Nokia 208 has one 3G frequency in usw by AIS, but it's a higher frequency (2100), so would have less reach than True's 850. So a Nokia phone with more frequencies would give you more choice if you were to jump to another network.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_208-5560.php

Where I am right now, 2G on True gets one to two bars, while 850 3G gets the full five on N8. I have not tried AIS in that phone yet.

[xylophone]

Nokia C3-01 has all but one of the 3G bands the Nokia N8 has. That one does work well with True currently, though a True shop said it wouldn't work on internet. It does.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_c3_01_touch_and_type-3525.php

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n8-3252.php

Nokia 208 has one 3G frequency in usw by AIS, but it's a higher frequency (2100), so would have less reach than True's 850. So a Nokia phone with more frequencies would give you more choice if you were to jump to another network.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_208-5560.php

Where I am right now, 2G on True gets one to two bars, while 850 3G gets the full five on N8. I have not tried AIS in that phone yet.

Thanks for the info "goldmagpie", much appreciated as the more one can find out about these things, the better equipped one will be to sort out what appears to be a bit of a mess in the Thailand mobile arena.

I did check out the Nokia 208 dual Sim and the info I looked at stated that it had two bands on the 3G network, 900 and 2100, so I think I would be covered, however perhaps the C3-01 phone will be the better option and I'll only know this when I try it out in the next few days.

In addition I think the Nokia 225 is only 2G so the OP will be out of luck soon, at least with AIS anyway.

[goldmagpie]

I did check out the Nokia 208 dual Sim and the info I looked at stated that it had two bands on the 3G network, 900 and 2100, so I think I would be covered, however perhaps the C3-01 phone will be the better option and I'll only know this when I try it out in the next few days.

You're covered on AIS right now, but can't jump quickly to True 3G.

[xylophone]

I did check out the Nokia 208 dual Sim and the info I looked at stated that it had two bands on the 3G network, 900 and 2100, so I think I would be covered, however perhaps the C3-01 phone will be the better option and I'll only know this when I try it out in the next few days.

You're covered on AIS right now, but can't jump quickly to True 3G.

Not sure I understand that "gm"...........want to stay with AIS (number, convenience etc) so as they now have 2100 band surely I will be ok?

Quote: 2100 MHz [band 1] is now licensed to

AIS, 3G network

DTAC 3G/4G network

TOT 3G 3G network

TrueMove H: 3G/4G network

[goldmagpie]

If True actually refarms 850 from 3G to 4G and gets 900 up and running on 3G in the same places they had 850, then I agree. There's a huge difference between 850-900 and 2100 in terms of how closely together the base stations need to be to accomplish the same coverage.

[xylophone]

If True actually refarms 850 from 3G to 4G and gets 900 up and running on 3G in the same places they had 850, then I agree. There's a huge difference between 850-900 and 2100 in terms of how closely together the base stations need to be to accomplish the same coverage.

You obviously know more about this sort of stuff than I do, but one thing I do know is that AIS said that they are no longer supporting 2G phones, so they are handing out 3G phones as replacements, and the one that I have got from them is not that "user-friendly" from my perspective.

HOWEVER, last night I got the Nokia C3-01 candy bar phone from my mate to try out and it is a little gem, with a partly touchscreen function and it covers the 850, 900, 1900 and 2100 bands, so now it's just a case of putting my Sim card into it and getting used to it.........and so far it seems great, and not only that it is a metal phone (in black/grey) and looks smart.

Maybe I'm set up now for a few years into the future as long as AIS and 3G are around!

Thanks for your help by the way.

[xylophone]

Thanks xylophone. Your requirements seem to match mine. From what I can find, the redundancy of older phones appears to be related to the radio frequencies but both Nokia models that I stated are dual band so should be OK for 3G? All very confusing. My wife, who is completely non-tech (that's not a criticism) seems confident that her old Nokia will go on forever so she is in for a shock. She has an expensive Samsung smartphone for posing but the candybar Nokia is her main comms device.

My LAVA phone is not yet activated but I have played around with it to learn the features. Made in India. Disappointed in the display which varies in brightness as it is angled. Happlily, I was able to delete pre-loaded apps that I don't want namely Twitface, Faceache Linebacker yet there are some in the Running apps which cannot be removed. But that's thread drift.

I have a 3 year old Samsung smartphone but as with all of these devices the display is unreadable in outdoor light conditions so the LAVA will join it in a drawer and I will go back to two empty can and a length of string!

Update here PTE..............the Nokia C3-01 my mate gave me has stopped working due to a faulty touch screen, so searched everywhere and online for a 3G replacement. Finally ordered the Nokia 301 new from e-bay and it is on its way now!!!!

Has to be better than the Lava one handed out by AIS...!!!!

[Jdiddy]

If True actually refarms 850 from 3G to 4G and gets 900 up and running on 3G in the same places they had 850, then I agree. There's a huge difference between 850-900 and 2100 in terms of how closely together the base stations need to be to accomplish the same coverage.

True have a narrow 4g channel on 900mhz in Chiangmai, dont know about other places. 850/900 bands dont have the wide bandwidths of the higher bands and actually overlap further restricting usability so are more ideal for 2g and 3g