Dual Sim vs Single Sim

[bilemke]

That's great! Dual-SIM fits your needs perfectly. My point is you are an edge case, at least in the US...99.9% of Americans have one single phone line and one single need for a SIM. But Microsoft decided to offer the dual-SIM model only in the US, which has serious tradeoffs with US carriers. That frustrates and confuses their target market. They are offering only a dual-SIM to the masses who just want their $700 device to work with their carrier (yes, VVM is a big deal to most). Makes little sense to me personally. Instead, you have to find an international model originally produced for China and import it if you want it to fully work with a US carrier. What?

My point is, for the vast majority of people in the US, the single SIM model will be better. I read somewhere that AT&T will not support VVM on a dual-SIM phone period, so a software update may not be able to fix things.

I stand by my point. Single SIM is the way to go in the US unless you have a very specific need for two lines on one device. I do not. YMMV. Microsoft either needs to offer the single-SIM variant in the US or pressure AT&T to fix VVM incompatibility.

1st, going to acknowledge how I am one considering returning my dual sim for a single sim..

But, agree with the guy about the dual sim.

On the single sim, this is app/OS issue. ATT will say they don't support dual sim now as they likely know it won't work (at least not with Win Phone that they are being asked about). That's cause MS even notes it won't work, regardless of carrier. If ATT or carrier releases specialized app, it could work fine. Or if MS adds support to deal with visual voice mail addressing two sims/lines/numbers. If you look at other devices/oses that support dual sim, they normally have greater flexibility in APN settings (we have MMS and, well.. hotspot I think.. yeah, think that is it). They really only added the ease of editing those couple APNs in Win 8 builds as far as I can remember. With that said, if we can specify APN settings (more of them, not just few we can see) for each SIM card and the app handling the visual phone mail checks were designed to handle checking two different sims with different apns for different numbers, not sure why this couldn't be an all app/os change/patch down the road.

Heck, a couple other OSes, I have seen simply disabling the secondary sim slot completely as an option. Which would put the phone back to being a "single sim" phone, in which case same app on a normally dual sim phone as the single sim phone should allow the app to pick up visual voice mail on the one enabled sim slot with the second disabled.

And others have said, for me, this is about my own line + one with employer/job. I can have one phone, vs one phone for me and one for work on me. Yeah, why not just one number right? Well, cost/privacy/etc.. for both myself and the employer.

 

[manicottiK]

I don't want this to turn into a fight, but I do want to push back a bit more on what we each wrote.

...in the US...99.9% of Americans have one single phone line and one single need for a SIM.

I think that the number of folks with multiple lines is far higher than that and that the idea of consolidating two lines in one device is something that the vast majority of people have never even considered to be possible. I'd argue that the percentage of people with two phone lines is closer to 3-5%, which is about 9-15M subscribers in the U.S. (To be fair, we're both guessing.

Microsoft decided to offer the dual-SIM model only in the US, which has serious tradeoffs with US carriers.

My guess -- and that's all it is -- is that Microsoft is trying to stake out a place in the market where others haven't really gone: work/personal consolidation. Whether or not that tradeoff is "serious" for a given user is probably driven mostly by whether or not the user has one SIM or two. But I am totally sympathetic that single-SIM users who want a large screen are currently giving up a nice feature and getting nothing in return.

I read somewhere that AT&T will not support VVM on a dual-SIM phone...Microsoft either needs to offer the single-SIM variant in the US or pressure AT&T to fix VVM incompatibility.

While I do not know, I have a really strong belief that the issue is with the OS and not the network. The same dual-SIM/VVM limitation exists for other dual-SIM Windows phones.

In the end, the entire argument for offering the single-SIM XL is to offer the VVM feature. Suppose that Microsoft does offer it via a software update, would you still want MS to offer a single-SIM device, would you still be opposed to them selling only the dual-SIM model, and why?

 

[kristalsoldier]

Does a Dual SIM device suck more battery than a Single SIM device?

 

[enthuz]

If there was a way to use a Verizon sim in one slot and a T-Mobile sim in the other on the 950XL, then I would love to use it. However that scenario isn't going to work in my favor. I see were they are going with offering it though, but I expected it more with the Surface phone. Maybe this was their "testing the market" move.

 

[coolbreeze78]

manicottiK - good points, I don't disagree. Hell if Verizon worked on the XL, I'd have rather had the dual-SIM. Given that it does not and I have AT&T for my personal line, the single SIM XL really works best for my needs, and I suspect I'm not alone. Being able to consolidate my work line and personal line on the weekends or on vacation would be nice, but it's not critical. I just slide my work Verizon iPhone in my bag and go about my business.

Microsoft should just offer both models in the US. Have and need only one carrier? Single SIM. Want to consolidate? Here's a dual-SIM.

Seems simple, but I guess they are trying to blaze a path for widespread American adoption of dual-SIM phones, since they are very rare here (very common in other parts of the world). I guess it seems like a risky gamble given the touch and go nature of the platform thus far. We shall see how it pans out I guess.