Nokia handset with Triband WCDMA and Quadband GSM?

[legionnaire821]

I may have my terminology wrong here. I am looking for a Nokia handset that has 850/1900/2100 WCDMA support AND Quad band GSM (for voice) 850/900/1800/1900.

Does Nokia make such a device?

My carrier in the US Is AT&T and I travel in Hong Kong, Singapore and India. The occasional trip to Germany.

I'm looking for a device (preferably Nokia) that works in these locations.

[mrochester]

Only one, the N85.

[HC - NO "i"]

legionnaire821,

Greetings.

None in the current line-up meets your requirement. The closest one is N85-1, an odd variant with WCDMA/UMTS 900/1900/2100. (Reportedly, there will be another N85-3 variant with WCDMA/UMTS 850/1900)

There are models having Quad-band GSM + WCDMA/UMTS 850/2100 like 5610 XpressMusic, 3120 classic, 6600 slide / fold, etc. Beware of some models having the WCDMA/UMTS 900/2100 variants like E66, E71 if it is destined for sales in Europe, Middle East, Africa, parts of Asia, but WCDMA/UMTS 850/1900 variant here in North America.

[mrochester]

None in the current line-up meets your requirement. The closest one is N85-1, an odd variant with WCDMA/UMTS 900/1900/2100. (Reportedly, there will be another N85-3 variant with WCDMA/UMTS 850/1900)

The N85-3 is UMTS 850/1900/2100.

[jason95]

The E51-1 (The E51-2 has no camera, but is the same thing) does:

WCDMA on 850/2100
GSM on 850/900/1800/1900

This is a pretty universal/safe phone for travelling. It has all the bands you need...It just doesn't do WCDMA on 1900 in North America, but who cares...850 has way better RF coverage over 1900 anyway.

I've been using the E51 on Rogers for a while and it's perfect. No problems with WCDMA/3G and GSM performance is excellent.

Another bonus is it does WiFi, so if you use Skype or another VoIP application, you're set with this handset.

[legionnaire821]

N85-3 or the E51-1 seems just right. When I look at amazon.com or some of the other sites, how do I determine which "-n" variant is the phone?

Or are there specific (r)etailers that offer these models?

[dmapr]

The E51-1 (The E51-2 has no camera, but is the same thing) does:

WCDMA on 850/2100
GSM on 850/900/1800/1900

This is a pretty universal/safe phone for travelling. It has all the bands you need...It just doesn't do WCDMA on 1900 in North America, but who cares...850 has way better RF coverage over 1900 anyway.

I've been using the E51 on Rogers for a while and it's perfect. No problems with WCDMA/3G and GSM performance is excellent.

Another bonus is it does WiFi, so if you use Skype or another VoIP application, you're set with this handset.

AT&T users care — most of AT&T 3G is currently on 1900MHz.

[jason95]

AT&T users care — most of AT&T 3G is currently on 1900MHz.

Well that's not Nokia's problem, nor mine. Why AT&T would choose to use an inferior RF band for North American 3G coverage (their elite service!) is beyond me...1900 MHz sucks. It should be considered a "complementary" band to 850.

[dmapr]

Well that's not Nokia's problem, nor mine. Why AT&T would choose to use an inferior RF band for North American 3G coverage (their elite service!) is beyond me...1900 MHz sucks. It should be considered a "complementary" band to 850.

Could it be the same reason the rest of the world brought out 3G on even more "inferior" band, 2100MHz?

[adam917]

Could it be the same reason the rest of the world brought out 3G on even more "inferior" band, 2100MHz?

The thing is the US (and Canada) has lots of open land & rural areas and 1900 (and 1700, 1800, 2100 MHz) are mainly good for cities & other densely-populated areas. Those higher frequencies also have trouble penetrating buildings compared to 800 (& 700, 900 MHz) so even in non-rural areas, 1900 MHz can pose problems. With this in mind, it's not hard to figure out why Telstra in Australia decided to use 800 (850 - same thing) MHz for their W-CDMA/UMTS network (and this is besides the fact that it was used on their previous CDMA network).

[jason95]

Could it be the same reason the rest of the world brought out 3G on even more "inferior" band, 2100MHz?

They could move to 900 if handsets were designed for this band and they started moving older 2G technology up to 1800/1900/2100 as a secondary service. Evolution.

Seriously, from an RF standpoint, 1800, 1900 and 2100 suck. Good for small-area localized cells only, like a downtown or dense urban environment. You don't see any public safety radio systems above 851-868 MHz for a reason...

Since AT&T has access to the 850 band in North America, they are fools for not using it to deliver the newer 3G/UMTS technology. Maybe that's their long-term plan, but if I was them I wouldn't put it off much longer.

[dmapr]

They could move to 900 if handsets were designed for this band and they started moving older 2G technology up to 1800/1900/2100 as a secondary service. Evolution.

Seriously, from an RF standpoint, 1800, 1900 and 2100 suck. Good for small-area localized cells only, like a downtown or dense urban environment. You don't see any public safety radio systems above 851-868 MHz for a reason...

Since AT&T has access to the 850 band in North America, they are fools for not using it to deliver the newer 3G/UMTS technology. Maybe that's their long-term plan, but if I was them I wouldn't put it off much longer.

The problem with lower-frequency bands is the capacity. As good as they are at penetrating, they have their limits as well. It's a trade-off they have to cope with.

[Dro]

The nokia 6500 is 850/2100. Does that work for you?

[dumwaldo]

Well that's not Nokia's problem, nor mine. Why AT&T would choose to use an inferior RF band for North American 3G coverage (their elite service!) is beyond me...1900 MHz sucks. It should be considered a "complementary" band to 850.

http://your.rogers.com/investorrelat...s_wireless.asp
[Rogers] Wireless holds 25 MHz of contiguous spectrum across Canada in the 850 frequency range and 60 MHz in the 1900 frequency range across the country, with the exception of southwestern Ontario, northern Québec, and the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut territories, where [Rogers] Wireless holds 50 MHz in the 1900 frequency range.

I hope you never go to southwestern Ontario, northern Québec, and the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut territories because you will be using the "inferior RF band".

[Rogers] Wireless also holds certain broadband fixed wireless spectrum in the 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz and 3500 MHz frequency ranges. In September 2005, Wireless, together with Bell Canada, announced the formation of an equally-owned joint venture called Inukshuk to construct a pan-Canadian wireless broadband network that will be based on the evolving World Interoperability for Microwave Access (“WiMAX”) standards.

CRAP, in the future we are all going to be using inferior bands?

[jason95]

http://your.rogers.com/investorrelat...s_wireless.asp
[Rogers] Wireless holds 25 MHz of contiguous spectrum across Canada in the 850 frequency range and 60 MHz in the 1900 frequency range across the country, with the exception of southwestern Ontario, northern Québec, and the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut territories, where [Rogers] Wireless holds 50 MHz in the 1900 frequency range.

I hope you never go to southwestern Ontario, northern Québec, and the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut territories because you will be using the "inferior RF band".

[Rogers] Wireless also holds certain broadband fixed wireless spectrum in the 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz and 3500 MHz frequency ranges. In September 2005, Wireless, together with Bell Canada, announced the formation of an equally-owned joint venture called Inukshuk to construct a pan-Canadian wireless broadband network that will be based on the evolving World Interoperability for Microwave Access (“WiMAX”) standards.

CRAP, in the future we are all going to be using inferior bands?

It certainly looks that way.

I know you kind of have a mission to keep fighting with me because you don't have a lot of background in RF, and I can understand your mentality I guess... But even so, regardless of both our positions here, it's a fact the higher up in RF spectrum you go, "line of sight" propagation is very short. The only way to blanket an area with trees and rock (rural areas in the Canadian Shield for example) and the concrete jungle (dense urban areas) is to build a whole whack of lower-power micro sites with very directional phased high-gain antennas.

With 850/900 sites, the infrastructure costs are less as the sites can be built further apart. Unfortunately with current technology, there's the capacity issue. As we evolve into 3G/4G technology, it'll allow for more users to share the same narrow RF spectrum, without compromising data throughput and audio quality.

1800/1900/2100 is still crap. Sorry if you disagree. That spectrum is not meant for propagating long-range radio signals from omni-directional, unity-gain antennas with less than 100mW of RF power (the handsets). Sure, it works...but it's inferior compared to 850/900.

Hopefully no one reading the thread is thinking the RF frequency has something to do with the "speed" of the cell phone or something retarded like that... Like "My 1900 MHz phone is better than 850. The frequency is faster just like a computer!"