Tri-Band phone without 850 MHz

OK I am just posting this as an example: https://1vs1.digital/phone/philips-xenium-e311/ It is a feature phone from Philips yet only tri-band.

Where I am based we don't always have the full range of phone models.

In relation to South America I was referring to Peru.

I must have a feature phone as a second phone as it consumes less battery and my dual sim main Android phone operates far better with one sim only in terms of signal strength.

Just to add, quad band GSM isn't the norm for feature phones sold here where most are sold as dual band and from what I can gather this is also the case in many EU countries.

mikedt said:

According to the Wiki Movistar is the only carrier that operates 850MHz GSM in Peru.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_of_the_Americas#Peru

And apparently two of the carriers are 3G/4G only networks, so basic feature phones like that 2G/GSM only tri-band Philips Xenium E311 will NOT work with those carriers. So you might have to only use a Claro SIM with GSM 1900Mhz, if you wish to use a basic GSM feature phone like that Philips one.

BTW I didn't even know Philips still made phones, thought they stopped a very long time ago, like around 2000.

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for your useful feedback. I was in Peru over the summer and bought a phone from Claro over there: http://www.azumi-mobile.com/en/equipments/l3ga-lite/ which is also 3G compatible for Peru. I am now based in Cairo, Egypt and wanted to see if there were some drivers to add Arabic as a language to the phone but can't find any. 3G is a different band to here but it is quad band GSM so it works here but not having additional languages means it is unusable at the moment.

I have been having the same problems with an old Samsung GT-E2121B I bought from the UK. Samsung Kies doesn't appear to work with these old phones. There is a app called New PC Studio which I haven't managed to get to work properly: https://www.samsung.com/africa_en/support/model/GT-E2121ARAECT/#downloads and I can only seem to connect to my pc through bluetooth and not a cable so it looks as though it's back to square one again!

From what I can see Philips only seem to provide phones for certain countries. I actually have a Philips tablet (TLE722G) which is made in China. Have a look here (this is not from my region...): https://www.philips.com.hk/en/c-m-so/mobile-tablets/latest#filters=MOBILE_PHONES_SU,SV_TABLETS_SU,2014,2012,2011,2010,2009,2008,2007,2006,2005,2004&sliders=&support=&price=&priceBoxes=&page=&layout=12.subcategory.p-grid-icon

As a general problem many phones are getting bigger and more power hungry and I need a second one which is light and battery saving. It's enough having a Samsung Galaxy J5 Prime in my jeans pocket and I don't want to carry two large phones all day!

Also feature phones which are light, quad band GSM, full band 3G and can travel all over the world are not the norm here. I bought the Nokia 1 recently and it is the closest thing I found, but it is not a feature phone nor has the same battery usage as one.

mikedt said:

Thing with feature-phones, or dumb-phones as I prefer to call them, they're not really intended to go globetrotting with, and might be limited with their languages support outside of the regions they're intended for, like no Arabic in a phone that was sold in South America. And hacking and adding additional language support or swapping firmware probably just isn't possible. There's probably no devs interested in dumb-phones.

Click to expand...

Certainly looks like it!

Davdi said:

I'd be thinking of an Android Go phone like BlackviewA20 https://www.xda-developers.com/blackview-a20-review-android-go/
or the very similar Cubot J3 - they have a removable battery (so you could keep a spare or two fully charged ) https://www.igeekphone.com/cubot-j3...d-go-os-for-just-82-99-at-tomtop-in-pre-sale/
These are 3G
But the Cubot J3Pro is 4G, also with a removable battery https://www.devicespecifications.com/en/model/b5354a6c
They all have GSM 850MHz.
I'd prefer any of these (with a spare battery or two).
Those are the only Android Go phones I'm aware of (Apart from a Nokia).

Click to expand...

Thanks but these are too big for a second phone.

I had thought of this one (look at the single SIM variant specifications in the 'Network' section drop down) with 2G and 3G bands: https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_3310_3g-8876.php Also the weight and size is acceptable, however I found some negative reviews from users saying that they were not picking up 3G signals but something similar in size, weight and specifications and with good reviews would be acceptable.

Hadron said:

I was going to suggest looking at the Nokia 3310. The thing to note is that there are 3 versions, the 2017 one and both 3G and 4G 2018 models. And looking at the specs at gsmarena it seems that there are single and dual SIM versions, and while the single SIM models are quad band 2G and 3G the dual SIM ones are reported to be dual band only for both.

That does make me wonder which model the people reporting reception problems are using.

Click to expand...

If you look at this review: https://community.phones.nokia.com/support/discussions/topics/7000019832 the reviewers must have been referring to Nokia 3310 3G although it's unclear if they were using a single SIM or dual SIM model.

Most of the reviews of this phone have not been wonderful either so spending more money on what is supposed to be a better phone makes no sense unless of course Nokia have resolved these problems in the 4G model... You can see from the number of reviews that there is a demand for a 4G model of this type of phone: https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_3310_4g-reviews-9046.php

In this day and age of constant communications it surprises me that this gap in the market isn't better filled by the phone manufacturers especially considering the facts of (a) 2G shutdown in some countries (b) 3G picks up signals in areas that 2G doesn't and (c) phones made for people who can't or don't want to cope with android etc.

The next model up is the Nokia 8110 4G but once again has frequency limitations: https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_8110_4g-9089.php

For me personally a 2G/3G feature phone would give my brain some down time from constantly looking at the news, checking WhatsApp and anticipating responses as well as using other apps and therefore limiting what may end up as android addiction. Even now I am trying to switch my Samsung Galaxy to ultra power saving mode with a basic black screen for most of the day...

Davdi said:

How about an older Android with a small (3.2 inch) screen HTC Wildfire S https://www.gsmarena.com/htc_wildfire_s-review-598.phphttps://www.gsmarena.com/htc_wildfire_s-review-598.php, which does support all 4 GSM bands.
Which can be had in the UK for GBP 20-30 in 'as new' condition. If you want to squeeze a bit more performance from it, unlock the bootloader, flash a custom recovery and this custom ROM https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1842771&page=31
which has a kernel that lets you overclock, albeit with a small reduction in battery life.
If you're worried about limited internal memory, you can flash one of these: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1716124 which make a partition on an SD card appear as internal memory (Kind of like adoptive storage).
the post shows how to format the SD card, I used a 32GB card formatted as follows:
Partition 1 Fat - the rest (Approx. 28GB)
Partition 2 EXT4 2GB
Partition 3 Linux Swap - 2GB

With an overclock it was as fast as any new phone. And very small.

Click to expand...

Looks like a nice one although not dissimilar to my Samsung Galaxy Y: https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_y_s5360-4117.php I bought in 2011 although the HTC probably has more 3G (HSPDA) bands. I wish that manufacturers would make new phones like these two now. I remember seeing the Samsung Galaxy Pocket around 2012 and wish I had bought something similar then. I won't use my Galaxy Y now as I don't trust the battery.

For my second phone I am a big battery saving fan and am temporarily using the Nokia 105 single SIM that I bought in the UK a few years ago: https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_105-5324.php which has a good battery life but very much hits the 'dumb phone' category!..

So I would probably now want to buy a new model on the market that can go the extra mile.