I am considering a pinephone but have a question first

[flatulent_piney]

Ive have wanted a pinephone for quite some time but havent pulled the trigger because of carrier support being spotty.  It is now time to reconsider and I contacted my carrier to determine whether they could support the pinephone on their network.  Their 'experts' did not know and advised that I use their IMEI check tool. Given that are an NVMO for Tmobile and the compatability list (https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=...th_America) seems t-mobile friendly, I had hoped that someone might be willing to pump their IMEI into the tool and get back to me .  If there is another way I would be willing to hear it, but this is the best I can think of.

For anyone worried, IMEI is not overtly sensetive info and is often listed on the outside of the box of new cell phones. I wont go so far as to say that you should pass out your IMEI to strangers on the street, but this should be relatively safe.

IMEI Check Toool = https://www.usmobile.com/networks

Thank in advance

[8bit]

Tried 3 different PinePhone IMEI, BraveHeart/Manjaro/BETA editions. All selected GSM LTE.

I'm using these PinePhones on Tello/RedPocket(GSMT)/IoTDataworks. All T-Mobile MVNO.

Also tried the IMEI of an old Pixel and LG Stylo 4 and it selected Super LTE.

[bcnaz]

Ive have wanted a pinephone for quite some time but havent pulled the trigger because of carrier support being spotty.  It is now time to reconsider and I contacted my carrier to determine whether they could support the pinephone on their network.  Their 'experts' did not know and advised that I use their IMEI check tool. Given that are an NVMO for Tmobile and the compatability list (https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=...th_America) seems t-mobile friendly, I had hoped that someone might be willing to pump their IMEI into the tool and get back to me .  If there is another way I would be willing to hear it, but this is the best I can think of.

For anyone worried, IMEI is not overtly sensetive info and is often listed on the outside of the box of new cell phones. I wont go so far as to say that you should pass out your IMEI to strangers on the street, but this should be relatively safe.

IMEI Check Toool = https://www.usmobile.com/networks

Thank in advance

***
I currently have one PMOS Convergent phone using AT&T prepaid, 2 PMOS Convergent phones running on Pure Talk, and a Manjaro Convergent phone
running Pure Talk,  * Pure Talk is a AT&T MVNO... 

 I have also used a few different MVNO's of T-mobile without any issues.
* *
There are a couple of threads here on the forum discussing carriers and sim cards,  * you may find useful or interesting.
* * 
I am located in Southern Arizona, USA.
* *
My first Pine phone, I did the swap of a working sim card into my Brave Heart phone,  * (worked no problem)
But since then I have activated each sim card in the Pine phones.

I tried several times to activate a Verizon sim, but I never had any success with them.

[zetabeta]

tested two pinephone devices (postmarketos, beta edition), both say "GSM LTE Network recommended!".

[flatulent_piney]

Marking as solved. My main question was about the carrier and I am confident that I will be able to bring a Pinephone to the carrier I have chosen . Thank you for your help everyone.

I do have a couple of additional questions if you all dont mind:

1) Is the carrier info in the compatibility list still mostly accurate or have things changed with new software? I am looking specifically at MMS not working or not tested across the board.

2) Is this device ready for a daily driver? I still intend to DYOR on this but I am curious what will be said when asked directly. 'Daily driver' for me means: calls/text with cell data, checking emails, and possible light streaming of music, and web browsing. Failed calls and missed texts are a deal breaker, occasional freezes/stutters/software hiccups that can be solved with a reboot are acceptable.

[woo2]

Marking as solved. My main question was about the carrier and I am confident that I will be able to bring a Pinephone to the carrier I have chosen . Thank you for your help everyone.

I do have a couple of additional questions if you all dont mind:

1) Is the carrier info in the compatibility list still mostly accurate or have things changed with new software? I am looking specifically at MMS not working or not tested across the board.

2) Is this device ready for a daily driver?  I still intend to DYOR on this but I am curious what will be said when asked directly.  'Daily driver' for me means: calls/text with cell data, checking emails, and possible light streaming of music, and web browsing.  Failed calls and missed texts are a deal breaker, occasional freezes/stutters/software hiccups that can be solved with a reboot are acceptable.

I'm using a pmos community edition, and have tried both dreemurrs arch and manjaro via emmc/sim, and the entire selection available through megi's p-boot multi demo. (BTW, highly recommend this. If you pull the trigger definitely try it: https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/)

Have successrfully used Straghttalk(ATT) and Tracfone(TMobile) sims. Could not activate a Tracfone(Verizon) sim.

Have not experienced working MMS on any distro yet, but have not tested that extensively.

In my experience, by your definition of 'daily driver' definitely not there yet. You will be able to get/send calls and text, and use mobile data - all of this sometimes. The rest of the time you will be tinkering and helping to blaze the trail.

[nelstomlinson]

...

2) Is this device ready for a daily driver?  I still intend to DYOR on this but I am curious what will be said when asked directly.  'Daily driver' for me means: calls/text with cell data, checking emails, and possible light streaming of music, and web browsing.  Failed calls and missed texts are a deal breaker, occasional freezes/stutters/software hiccups that can be solved with a reboot are acceptable.

It's my DD. I'm running Mobian Bookworm, getting calls and SMS, doing a little websurfing and email via Firefox, no other real uses for the phone.

So far so good. There have been a couple of times when MMS or something clogged the modem and I had to clear that using ModemManager to get texts through. There has been one failed upgrade so far, I restored the image I had saved immediately before the upgrade and was back on line in a few hours.  Battery life is poor if I'm using the browser, so I keep a charger handy, carry a spare battery on road trips.  The camera is very poor, but no longer quite useless now that there is autofocus. Once I can do MMS, send and receive pictures, I'll call it 100% for my purposes.

[bcnaz]

For a good "Out of the Box" experience :
* Mobian is my first recommendation for a 'must try' operating system
Calls work great, phone wakes up pretty quick even from a deep sleep, for incoming calls.
Geary works ok for email, it is a little plain, but sets up easy.
Browsers : Epiphany works pretty well, Firefox comes pre-installed and works pretty well also.
SMS text messaging App is working very well.
Data and hot spot function pretty much as expected.
Notifications on the lock screen are working pretty good and improving.

[juanjose0719]

For a good  "Out of the Box"  experience :
  * Mobian is my first  recommendation  for a 'must try' operating system
Calls work great, phone wakes up pretty quick even from a deep sleep, for incoming calls.
Geary works ok for email,  it is a little plain, but sets up easy.
Browsers : Epiphany works pretty well,  Firefox comes pre-installed and works pretty well also.
SMS text messaging App is working very well.
Data and hot spot function pretty much as expected.
Notifications on the lock screen are working pretty good and improving.

I don't know how Mobian is performing now (Jan 2022), I saw in some youtube videos you had to switch the view from vertical to horizontal...I just got a Pine64 w/ Manjaro...you don't have to do that switch, the screen is responsive...not as fast as an iPhone, but will organize by itself.

[Anna]

I don't know how Mobian is performing now (Jan 2022), I saw in some youtube videos you had to switch the view from vertical to horizontal...I just got a Pine64 w/ Manjaro...you don't have to do that switch, the screen is responsive...not as fast as an iPhone, but will organize by itself.

Mobian does switch automatically now (since several months actually). Probably a lot of other things would have changed as well since the video.

I agree that Mobian is probably best suited as a daily driver. As for the other points: Unfortunately, my experience is not quite as good as @bcnaz ':
-Geary, Firefox, Contacts, Calendar, Terminal, Text Editor, gPodder, Lollypop and many other applications work fine.
-Calls do work, but my modem (and not only mine) keeps crashing quite often (which in effect means that I am unavailable till I notice that it has happened again and restart the phone).
-SMS has some quirks (text messages with more than 140 characters don't get sent on my phone etc; other users have reported problems sending or receiving messages)
-Mobile data connection mostly does not work on my phone (even when the modem has not crashed); sometimes (mabye 50/50) a restart helps.
-the Signal client works erratically

I have been using the Pinephone with Mobian as a daily driver for almost a year now, but presently I am not sure how long I will be able to do that unless I find a solution for the dropping modem and the unreliable data connections (and I am less and less confident I will).