How do you get the SIM out easily?

[desca]

I've been switching between two SIM cards just lately, but I find it difficult to get them out

[zborgerd]

I've been switching between two SIM cards just lately, but I find it difficult to get them out

I have to use the adapter w/ mine. The included nano > micro adapter is very poor quality, and tends to get caught on the pins. My experience is that it should not be inserted or removed without the nano card installed.

I try to gently lift on the card while removing it. It keeps the pins from getting caught. Using force to remove the card could break the pins. This is not a PinePhone specific problem but seems to occur with many types of phones that use generic sim slots like this.

My Android has a custom tray with a paperclip-sized eject button. Works way better.

[C0ffeeFreak]

Most phone manufacturers have standardized the Nano sim mostly to save space in the ever thinner phones packed with new features. I have no idea why Pinephone chose the Micro sim tray. They also chose the worse kind. (The slide in enclosed kind) That type of tray eats sim cards. Be aware you will have a very limited number of installations and removals before the sim contacts wear and your phone won't see it.

[desca]

I try to gently lift on the card while removing it. It keeps the pins from getting caught. Using force to remove the card could break the pins. This is not a PinePhone specific problem but seems to occur with many types of phones that use generic sim slots like this.

Ah. I was definitely not lifting on it, as it seemed hard to get my fingertip underneath.

Most phone manufacturers have standardized the Nano sim mostly to save space in the ever thinner phones packed with new features. I have no idea why Pinephone chose the Micro sim tray. They also chose the worse kind. (The slide in enclosed kind) That type of tray eats sim cards. Be aware you will have a very limited number of installations and removals before the sim contacts wear and your phone won't see it.

Wearing out: Oh. Bummer. I did not know that.

When people start talking about a PinePhone successor, I usually don’t pay much attention because they'll focus on more memory, more processor, higher resolution display, and just generally more. But it would be pretty interesting to put together all the issues where it could be made more reliable, less delicate to repair, less avid to eat up your SIM cards, etc.

[lsitongia]

I just received a Mobian edition and within 5 minutes my first try of putting a SIM card I tore one of the contacts for the SIM off the motherboard. It's the one on the right. No contact, no SIM card found. It was the edge of the white microSIM adapter. It has kind of a sharp edge and it doesn't hold the microSIM very well, so it fell out while I was trying to push it in. When I pulled the white adapter out, it ripped the contact out. The SIM is not spring-loaded, and it's a very tight friction fit.

[Zebulon Walton]

Wow, I wasn't aware of the wearing out problem for the SIM contacts. I've been going back and forth between my TracPhone and AT&T SIMs. I'll have to stop doing that, or at least do it much less frequently.

[lsitongia]

I just received a Mobian edition and within 5 minutes my first try of putting a SIM card I tore one of the contacts for the SIM off the motherboard. It's the one on the right. No contact, no SIM card found. It was the edge of the white microSIM adapter. It has kind of a sharp edge and it doesn't hold the microSIM very well, so it fell out while I was trying to push it in. When I pulled the white adapter out, it ripped the contact out. The SIM is not spring-loaded, and it's a very tight friction fit.

I managed to solder the little contact back into place. I tried an old Tracfone microSIM and it was recognized. I put my Google Fi nanoSIM into a Tracfone adapter and that worked! A few minutes later, it stopped working. Will have to investigate. I'm new here, so I don't know when something is caused by hardware and when it is software. Of course, it is most likely that the contact broke again.

Anyway, that white plastic nanoSIM adapter tray is a really bad idea. It has a sharp edge that catches the SIM slot contacts. Other adapters I have are better. It bums me out that a plastic part that cost a fraction of a cent put a significant dent in my $200 phone. Oh, well, there's still a lot I can do with it and I look forward to the fun.

[desca]

I managed to solder the little contact back into place. I tried an old Tracfone microSIM and it was recognized. I put my Google Fi nanoSIM into a Tracfone adapter and that worked! A few minutes later, it stopped working. Will have to investigate. I'm new here, so I don't know when something is caused by hardware and when it is software. Of course, it is most likely that the contact broke again.

I never learned to solder, and so it seems like magic to be able to repair anything with the phone because everything’s just so minuscule.

My WAN connectivity failed today, and of course my first thought was that my SIM contacts failed. Switched between SIM cards, switched between eMMC and SD, toggled the hardware switches, took it apart and shined a flashlight in the SIM region and squinted at it and blew in there in case the scraped-off surface color from my SIM was causing a problem, upgraded modem firmware (which I _think_ successfully happened), and still no luck after each step. Pressed on the antenna contacts, seemed all right, didn’t help. Took the antenna wire off completely and put it back on, and it’s working again, at least for the moment.

Anyway, starting from "mmcli -m any", that showed the modem was there, and that gave a SIM value, which was 0 in my case, and "mmcli -i 0" showed a few values that looked real, but had shown nothing for the bearer ("mmcli -b [whatever]") and my signal quality was 0.
So probably for you "mmcli -m any" won’t show a valid SIM path, or it won’t have anything valid in "mmcli -i [whatever]".

(actually my very first thought was fully expecting to have been kicked off the AT&T network for not having a device on their tiny whitelist)