Pine Phone now and future

[evilbunny]

Interesting.

Best guess?  Will the default chip be user replacable with US/China compatible chip or is that highly unlikely or impossible?

As far as I'm aware all chips in the phone will be soldered down, not to mention that it's a physically large chip

[SBCraok]

Devs, Could we get some clarification on what networks and countries the pinephone will work with?

As far as I know there is only 2 countries it may not work with, US and China, the chip was picked because it covers everything else. The company that makes the 4G chip has other chips that do work in those countries but then everywhere else won't work.

i will buy one for testing on t-mobiles US network (probably the batch after the brave heart, less buggies the better) but excluding the US market imo is a mistake. (i am bias  ) Maybe make the 4g chip replaceable in future models could solve the problem or offer two models. idk what is more economical.

fyi - my US 4g phone works on the t-mobile network in the UK too.

[bcnaz]

Devs, Could we get some clarification on what networks and countries the pinephone will work with?

As far as I know there is only 2 countries it may not work with, US and China, the chip was picked because it covers everything else. The company that makes the 4G chip has other chips that do work in those countries but then everywhere else won't work.

i will buy one for testing on t-mobiles US network (probably the batch after the brave heart, less buggies the better) but excluding the US market imo is a mistake. (i am bias  ) Maybe make the 4g chip replaceable in future models could solve the problem or offer two models. idk what is more economical.

fyi - my US 4g phone works on the t-mobile network in the UK too.

*
Hmm...  ?
  Worst case scenario,  That could be 100% accurate,  but...  seems to me, a lot of the time stuff like that drags on,  schedules fall behind.

  There were places here in the US that were dragging their feet on leaving the 2G behind .

  F O L L O W  the money,  it is supposed to make everyone purchase all new equipment,

 when cell phones first hit the market in my area I was forced to buy one.

Verizon bought the local radio phone service and turned it off the next day.

  With the radio phone I could make calls while being over a hundred miles from the repeater,  with a cell phone I have to be close to a cell tower.

 Now from what I hear the distance is even shorter as we go from 2G to 3G to 4G.

   Anyhow,  I am going to purchase a "Brave Heart" and use it as long as I can....

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Pine phone per-orders : One Day and thirty something minutes to go !

[Bootkit]

Can't wait to get one of these!

Not much longer on the pre-order

[rdgbjhugfdc]

Will the Pine Phone Brave Heart support 4G  and  5G  ?
 I hear that 3G is going to soon be history on most  Providers.
       Thanks

The Pinephone comes with a Quectel EG-25G for the baseband module.

On their product page you can see the supported bands: https://www.quectel.com/product/eg25g.htm

And in the wiki linked in an earlier comment.

They support LTE which splits into LTE-FDD and LTE-TDD. You either use one or the other. The supported bands for LTE-FDD are B1/ B2/ B3/ B4/ B5/ B7/ B8/ B12/ B13/ B18/ B19/ B20/ B25/ B26/ B28 and for LTE-TDD you have B38/ B39/ B40/ B41.

It also supports WCDMA and GSM with the bands supported shown in the link.

You have to see what your carrier uses to see if it is compatible.

For example Verizon seems to support bands 2/4/14 for 4G.

Note that this carrier only accepts approved devices on its network.
Even if a device supports some or all of the required frequencies for this carrier, it will not be able to connect unless the device is approved for this network. Check with the network operator to confirm whether a device is approved or not.

Pulled ^^^ that from a generic website so I'm not sure how true that is but it seems to align with their business model. I'll update here if I figure anything out before now and the pre-order.

I'm not sure how this applies to other carriers. I just used Verizon as an example.

[Quddus]

So with on one provider I see some overlap:
B2 (1900 PCS) LTE
B4 (1700/2100 AWS 1) LTE
B17 (700 bc) LTE
B30 (2300 WCS) LTE

Does the pine phone need to support all of these to work with the provider, or just one? If it just needs some overlap it seems like it would work with that provider, correct?

[madpinger]

Well, looks like I should be able to expect it to work more or less with Cricket, if I understand what I'm reading correctly. At least, until 2022.

[rdgbjhugfdc]

So with on one provider I see some overlap:
B2 (1900 PCS) LTE
B4 (1700/2100 AWS 1) LTE
B17 (700 bc) LTE
B30 (2300 WCS) LTE

Does the pine phone need to support all of these to work with the provider, or just one? If it just needs some overlap it seems like it would work with that provider, correct?

This website is useful but was updated last in October before the Spring/T-Mobile merger.

https://www.whistleout.com/CellPhones/Gu...-explained

It seems as though carriers have a main 4G band that phones must support in order to be able to use their services. Supporting more bands than this just ensures better connectivity.

To stick with my Verizon example since they have the largest 4G network -- their main band is 13. They also have 2 and 4. You would need band 13 to operate on their network. Bands 2 ad 4 would only augment your coverage and perhaps provide faster speeds in certain scenarios.

[curtvaughan]

Wish I'd read of the lack of US/China support before I bought one of these - oh, well. That's really a huge deficit in support. Guess I'll install a system and use it as a small computer over wifi.

[murak]

Wish I'd read of the lack of US/China support before I bought one of these - oh, well.  That's really a huge deficit in support.  Guess I'll install a system and use it as a small computer over wifi.

You can check and compare the supported frequencies of the phone to those used by your carrier. Here's the supported bands of the pinephone:

• LTE-FDD: B1/ B2/ B3/ B4/ B5/ B7/ B8/ B12/ B13/ B18/ B19/ B20/ B25/ B26/ B28
  
  
• LTE-TDD: B38/ B39/ B40/ B41
  
  
• WCDMA: B1/ B2/ B4/ B5/ B6/ B8/ B19
  
  
• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz