Blu Win HD LTE X150E strangely supports 3G @ 1900MHz (UMTS band II), should only do 900/2100

the_Inquisitor

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Apr 11, 2016
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Hello world,

I own the European version of the Win HD LTE which I bought from amazon.de and clearly says "X150E" on the label below the back cover. According to the specifications published by BLU my phone should support 3G only on 900 and 2100 MHz and I've been using it on German 3G networks on 2100MHz for more than a year.
However I'm in Los Angeles, CA now and my phone finds T-Mobile 3G and AT&T 3G during network searches and I can register on both 3G networks which is indicated by an "H" for HSPA after the PLMN designation ("AT&T H" or "T-Mobile H") and my repeated speedtests have hit two digit Mbps which under no circumstances would be possible with 2G (EDGE can only deliver 0.236 Mbps and Wifi was disabled). So I'm absolutely sure that at least my X150E supports 3G at 1900 MHz (also know as UMTS frequency band II).
Since I also discovered that the European X150E carries the FCC-ID "YHLBLUWINHDLTE" on its back which is the same ID as for the American X150Q I thought for a moment that the "X150E" and the "X150Q" might actually share the same hardware but have only some differences in software which makes them European or American, but my phone does not discover any 4G network here in the US while it has been working on LTE band 3, 7 and 20 (all typical European 4G freqeuencies absent in the US). So the 4G frequency configuration seems to be different.My conclusion is that at least the X150E supports more 3G frequency bands than officially stated.

Is anyone aware of an engineering screen/app that would reveal some low level radio information, especially frequency band or ARFCN?

It would also be interesting to see if the American X150Q supports 3G on 900 or 2100MHz. I assume that the earlier could be the case as the phone must have an power amplifier for the 900MHz band because of its GSM900 support anyway and those power amplifiers (coming from manufacturers like Avago) are the only hurdle to implement further frequencies since all that Qualcomm chipsets have had multi-band support for ages.
For the European X150E the support for 3G on 850 and 1900 MHz is an easy one as it must have power amplifiers for these two bands because of its support of GSM850 and GSM1900.
 

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