What are my options here? I’m looking for something that is in the 4.3"-5.6" size range that is at least up to date with Android, preferably something that can be easily loaded with a custom rom like LineageOS to stay up to date.
The goal is to have a phone with free service through both Freedom Pop and Republic Wireless with reasonably good coverage, I don’t need much data since the SD card would host about 60Gb of music.
Unfortunately they are stupidly rare, most have that stupid microSD/SIM hybrid slot which defeats the whole point.
Anyway, 2 years ago I bought the Moto X Play for that reason, but it’s not exactly up to date. It does have Lineage support, but I haven’t flashed (yet).
I think the new Nokias have both as well.
Generally nothing under 5’’ had both back then.
Geizhals/Skinflint has a filter specifically for that:
There is some weird stuff available on the Chinese market sites like Banggood and AliExpress. Heck, there is always weird stuff on those sites.
You might find what you want there but it is unusual to get both dual sim + Micro SD to then want something you can unlock will be extra tricky.
I think the best you can hope for is dual sim with a bucket load of internal storage. Then use external storage to make up for the lack of Micro SD.
Why the Micro SD?? if we know why you need it we may be able to come up with a practical solution.
I have a Nokia 7 plus arriving on Wednesday next week. That will do most of what I need from a phone over the next couple of years.
Why is because I already have 64Gb UHS1 class cards and I don’t use data often, hence why I was looking at this for a way to get free monthly service via both FreedomPop and Republic Wireless for talk, text and a small amount of data, generally just enough for GPS use since free wifi is prevalent in my area and I would rather use my own mp3 collection over a streaming service.
Basically, going for the cheap long game, upfront cost isn’t a big deal if the monthly service is free.
Because internal storage models are usually a multitude in price compared to the same size microSD. And you can always swap the microSD when you run out of storage.
From what I can gather mobile phone plans are very different around the world. I’m in the UK and because of BT I get good Wi-Fi in most built up places “free” as part of my home internet connection. Any home with BT for their ISP and my phone will automatically connect and piggyback off their home connection. BT is still the most popular home ISP here in the UK. For data text and voice I pay £9 per month from Tesco. More texts and voice minuets per month than I could ever use and 2GB of data. Most months I use less than 1GB so 2GB is more than enough. Streaming music in my car is just about the only thing I use, that and some navigation and I don’t think that uses too much.
As for Micro SD cards I have bought a new 128GB SanDisk to drop into my Nokia 7 plus when it arrives. I can live with a single sim, no one talks to me with one phone number, not sure I can handle being ignored by two lines.
In my case I’ve done something hacky by delaminating a sim card down to its bare IC and pad which I stuck onto the back of a microsd card in order to get dual sim + sdcard working in a hybrid slot RedMi Note 4 and on a Samsung S7
But I do advise that nobody tries to do this unless they have declared themself insane.
That is actually brilliant, it does require the contacts inside the device to be at the right spot though. Also wouldn’t work for the phone I have, because the single-SIM version of it (why the hell does that even exist?) apparently physically disconnected the pins for reading the second SIM.
Also @Yigda, a friend of mine recently got the Xperia XA1 and my mother the Xperia L1, both are doing their job fine. Unfortunately neither has a Lineage build yet, but shouldn’t be hard to build.
Yeah, I saw that hack. I don’t even know where to start with all the things that could go wrong with the entire process.
You could get a Sony Xperia Z5 Duel. It is a bit of an older model now but they can be bought for around $300 have a micro sd slot, duel sim, good camera and from the looks of it they can be loaded with lineageOS
Was looking for that Z5 Dual, any place selling new ones that aren’t from India or UAE?
Depends where you are I guess? I see some on Amazon.
I avoid them, they robbed me of $70 and are generally a terrible company.
There should be some local shops around, usually Google (and Google shopping) are worth a shot. Not sure where people search in other countries, I just know where to look in the DACH area.
