Dual Sim Phone

[madz1]

Hi all,

I'm wanting to get a dual sim phone for using in Thailand so I can have my home country (UK) sim and thai sim in the same phone.

Has anyone got any recommendations? or advice, ones to avoid etc.

Cheers,

Madz1

[bangna]

I recently purchased a Realme 5 in Pattaya for 4600 bt. Made by Oppo and similar spec to Oppo A5 2020.

6.5 inch screen, 4GB + 64GB, dual sim and micro SD slot, 5000 mA battery and quad camera.

[dingbat22]

2 hours ago, madz1 said:

Hi all,

I'm wanting to get a dual sim phone for using in Thailand so I can have my home country (UK) sim and thai sim in the same phone.

Has anyone got any recommendations? or advice, ones to avoid etc.

Cheers,

Madz1

Samsung A10 I am using, I am pretty impressed with it.... first cheap smartphone that i can really actually use for the internet too,  browsing and responding on this forum with it now

[madz1]

9 minutes ago, bangna said:

I recently purchased a Realme 5

cheers mate, will check them out.

4 minutes ago, dingbat22 said:

Samsung A10 I am using, I am pretty impressed with it.... first cheap smartphone that i can really actually use for the internet too,  browsing and responding on this forum with it now

cheers mate, yeh that's what I had my eye on after a quick browse, thanks for the feedback

[dingbat22]

1 minute ago, madz1 said:

cheers mate, will check them out.

cheers mate, yeh that's what I had my eye on after a quick browse, thanks for the feedback

For the small chunk of change it costs it is well worth it IMO

[ChiFlyer]

Just to comment.

I have an iPhone XS. Yes indeed that is not a cheap phone, but it gets the job done (usually). It uses an eSim to get the dual sim ability. Just to be clear, that means there is only one physical sim in the phone. The eSim has to be set up by the carrier. Since I live in Thailand, I set the eSim to AIS. In the Pattaya area this can only be done at the Central Festival AIS office (3rd floor).

Setting it up was free and only took 10 minutes plus queue time. Go during the week in the early afternoon to reduce the queue time. This approach enables me to buy a short term physical sim for whatever country I am visiting outside of Thailand.

My iPhone XS recently went belly up (4 months old). A friend lent me a Xiaomi 6, also a dual sim, but I had no easy way of implementing the eSim on it, so I was without my regular phone number for 3 weeks while Apple determined that they needed to replace my iPhone XS. The length of time on Apple's part was partly due to my being on the road.

I do have to say that although Apple's support organizations were very good, the effort to work my way through them was maddening with regard to redundant explanations being required on my part and happy horse shit attitudes from the reps. 

I have been an iPhone user for 12 years and have been happy with their product line, until this recent experience. That experience in part actually caused me to reduce my equity holding exposure to AAPL. Also, I think it has run too far on 5G hype.

I did like the Xiaomi 6 and you might want to look at it. It is a droid type interface.

Edited January 15, 2020 by ChiFlyer

[hioctane]

Go to Tukcom. Most of their phones are dual SIM.

[madz1]

6 minutes ago, ChiFlyer said:

Just to comment.

I have an iPhone XS. Yes indeed that is not a cheap phone, but it gets the job done (usually). It uses an eSim to get the dual sim ability. Just to be clear, that means there is only one physical sim in the phone. The eSim has to be set up by the carrier. Since I live in Thailand, I set the eSim to AIS. In the Pattaya area this can only be done at the Central Festival AIS office (3rd floor).

Setting it up was free and only took 10 minutes plus queue time. Go during the week in the early afternoon to reduce the queue time. This approach enables me to buy a short term physical sim for whatever country I am visiting outside of Thailand.

My iPhone XS recently went belly up (4 months old). A friend lent me a Xiaomi 6, also a dual sim, but I had no easy way of implementing the eSim on it, so I was without my regular phone number for 3 weeks while Apple determined that they needed to replace my iPhone XS. The length of time on Apple's part was partly due to my being on the road. I have been an iPhone user for 12 years and have been happy with their product line, until this recent experience. That experience in part actually caused me to reduce my equity holding exposure to AAPL. Also, I think it has run too far on 5G hype.

I did like the Xiaomi 6 and you might want to look at it. It is a droid type interface.

Cheers mate, good info. will check out the xiaomi 6

[madz1]

7 minutes ago, hioctane said:

Go to Tukcom. Most of their phones are dual SIM.

Yeh, I've seen a quite a few when I've been in before. I'm not clued up on them and wasn't looking for one at the time. wouldn't be able to spot a fake.

[birdhaus]

i have the chinese made Xiaomi made Blackshark, this isa top notch phone, great gpu/cpu and loads of road and a copper cooling system. 
dual sim is one  of the handy perks and because it's a lesser chinese brand that sually is reprepresented by an Mi logo, it's a undiscovered gem in the west. 
 

[taylor1975]

Buy in the UK, almost always cheaper...unless you're on the plane tomorrow

Using a uk sim in thailand for anything is the worst option too.

[madz1]

4 minutes ago, taylor1975 said:

Buy in the UK, almost always cheaper...unless you're on the plane tomorrow

Using a uk sim in thailand for anything is the worst option too.

Yeh, will prob get one off amazon before... yeh, if I'm out and about with my UK sim in I only use wifi for calls and messages etc... annoying when you're on the move though

[regyai]

8 minutes ago, taylor1975 said:

Buy in the UK, almost always cheaper...unless you're on the plane tomorrow

Using a uk sim in thailand for anything is the worst option too.

I think you overlook UK banking where its de rigueur to send one time 'pin's via SMS to your UK mobile phone (without which you are fresh outta luck)

[madz1]

7 minutes ago, regyai said:

I think you overlook UK banking where its de rigueur to send one time 'pin's via SMS to your UK mobile phone (without which you are fresh outta luck)

 That continues to annoy me. not to mention elderly family members... like a game show challenge

[footix]

14 minutes ago, regyai said:

I think you overlook UK banking where its de rigueur to send one time 'pin's via SMS to your UK mobile phone (without which you are fresh outta luck)

Easy with a dual simcard. If you need to receive an SMS from a bank etc just enable the UK Sim. Disable once you have the SMS. Costs a few pence. Works fine for me. 

[regyai]

19 minutes ago, regyai said:

I think you overlook UK banking where its de rigueur to send one time 'pin's via SMS to your UK mobile phone (without which you are fresh outta luck)

And vice versa when you're in the UK with your Thai SIM in the Dual SIM handset

 

Its comical how people are only now catching on to Dual SIM phones

 

Was about 7 or 8 years back (pre smart phones) I was smoking a Chinese Quad SIM handset, which ran my UK, 2 x Thai & my China SIMs

[madz1]

2 minutes ago, regyai said:

Its comical how people are only now catching on to Dual SIM phones

not really the case. I knew people who had them a decade or so ago for work / their interests. Just wanting a heads up for a decent one at this current time. would save me some hassle.

[taylor1975]

1 hour ago, regyai said:

I think you overlook UK banking where its de rigueur to send one time 'pin's via SMS to your UK mobile phone (without which you are fresh outta luck)

Never heard of that. Halifax don't use it. I would change banks. Who does use it?

So then, lose your card OR your phone and you've got problems.

[taylor1975]

1 hour ago, madz1 said:

Yeh, will prob get one off amazon before... yeh, if I'm out and about with my UK sim in I only use wifi for calls and messages etc... annoying when you're on the move though

So its for this pin number thing. Who do you bank with? that idea sucks

[Baddave]

44 minutes ago, taylor1975 said:

Never heard of that. Halifax don't use it. I would change banks. Who does use it?

So then, lose your card OR your phone and you've got problems.

It's more of a one time passcode for when  you set up online banking or credit card apps on your phone or if/when you change phones. It's also sometimes used when you try to pay someone via online/app banking as a form of authentication for the payment to confirm that it's not someone else trying to use your account.

[taylor1975]

20 minutes ago, Baddave said:

It's more of a one time passcode for when  you set up online banking or credit card apps on your phone or if/when you change phones. It's also sometimes used when you try to pay someone via online/app banking as a form of authentication for the payment to confirm that it's not someone else trying to use your account.

Makes sense but why do that on hols? Like to hear, what the others say. 

With 2 stage authentication, you can sometimes use email instead of phone too.

[geezerrb]

6 minutes ago, taylor1975 said:

Makes sense but why do that on hols? Like to hear, what the others say. 

With 2 stage authentication, you can sometimes use email instead of phone too.

I think  you will find more banks and other services are using one time pin verification frequently and I constantly get requests for confirmation of my phone number when I log into my accounts to ensure I receive them when necessary

Back to dual sims I think my first was in 2016 with a samsung j3 (android) means if I need to be contacted from the UK while in LOS they use my normal number they dont need to know my Thai number.

[NorthernSpirit]

5 hours ago, bangna said:

I recently purchased a Realme 5 in Pattaya for 4600 bt. Made by Oppo and similar spec to Oppo A5 2020.

6.5 inch screen, 4GB + 64GB, dual sim and micro SD slot, 5000 mA battery and quad camera.

Looks like a good one and most reviews are pretty decent. Thank you!

Definitely will buy a 2nd phone, if I go to LOS. Always good to have a backup anyway. I'm using a budget Xaomi phone right now and pretty happy with it, but I'll keep an eye on that Oppo for sure.

Cheers!
 

[kd_traveller]

One thing to note with a lot of Dual SIM phones is that the second SIM works on a 2G network.  Some countries including Australia no longer have any 2G networks left.  I spent hours trying to figure out why my second SIM wasn't working after returning to Australia a few years ago after being out of the country for a few months.  The answer was the last provider (Vodafone?) of a network with 2G had closed it in the period I was away.

As of 2018 (last article I can find on it!) "Japan, Singapore and Taiwan had also switched off 2G. In other countries, it has been partially switched off. For instance, in the USA, AT&T has switched off 2G meaning it’s now only available on T-Mobile."

But where they work they are very handy!

[regyai]

10 hours ago, taylor1975 said:

Never heard of that. Halifax don't use it. I would change banks. Who does use it?

So then, lose your card OR your phone and you've got problems.

They are all coming on line with it its becoming mandatory cannot login without