[640] Will a European variant work in the US?

[siggi200]

My brother is currently in Germany and could buy me one. On the official website they have a variety of different bands supported. Since ATT confuses me with all there different bands, I ask you guys. Does anyone know if the European 640 works at ATT in the US ?

 

[RumoredNow]

I would not if you are getting an LTE model. I think it very likely that the 640 will follow other releases and have 2 styles of radio. A Euro style (which you would get in Germany obviously) and a radio for the Americas which you would need for ATT.

3G support might not even be complete. Here is a link to the 640 Dual Sim on Microsoft Store DE: Microsoft Lumia 640 DS kaufen - Microsoft Store Germany Online Store It does not list the 1900 MHz needed on the WCDMA (3G) radio for ATT to work. I can't say if it is missing or just not listed as unimportant in Europe where they tend to rely more on 2100 MHz.

 

[Flooney]

What about Amazon? Bought mine from there.

 

[siggi200]

Damn. I really hoped it would work. On the German Microsoft 640 website is under specifications the same bands as on the American one... so I assumed it would work

 

[RumoredNow]

What you are showing as "American" on that chart is useless in the US for anything but EDGE speeds...

 

[siggi200]

Thank you for your reply! That helps me. Sorry for this kind of noob question. I just am not familiar with the band standards of ATT etc.
so thank you very much!

 

[RumoredNow]

GSM (2G) is pretty much standardized all over the world and you are hard pressed to find a phone that does not have the right quadband GSM on board to work anywhere (850/900/1800/1900 )... ATT will use 850/1900 in every area so far as I am aware.

In the US you usually see the following for pentaband radio for UMTS (3G): 850/900/1700/1900/2100... If you don't plan to ever be on T-Mo or a T-Mo reseller (mvno) then you can throw out 1700 and a lot of phones don't have it or have hidden it via firmware. ATT will use 850/1900 in every area so far as I am aware.

Also in the US you will almost always see LTE (4G) on Bands 2/4/5/7/17 (which equals frequencies 1900/1700+2100/850/2600/700 respectively). ATT will use 2, 4 or 17 depending on regional deployments.

So you want:
GSM 850/1900
UMTS 850/1900 (also called WCDMA)
LTE 700/1700/1900/2100 (also gets named by Band quite frequently so Band 2/4/17)

Click on the pic in my signature if you want to see my Guide on Matching Unlocked Phones to Carriers.

 

[Nagoyablue]

Thank you for your reply! That helps me. Sorry for this kind of noob question. I just am not familiar with the band standards of ATT etc.
so thank you very much!

Do a bing search for a website called "Will my phone work".

I'd link it, but I can't post links yet.

Put in the details of your phone and your carrier, and it will tell you if 2G, 3G and LTE (4G) will work for you. Simple!

Don't worry too much about the 2G result, as my previous 920 and current 520 don't get 2G off my carrier in Japan, but they both get 3G and could make voice calls/send SMS and use 3G internet conections.

It's a great site, and I found out that the Blu Win HD LTE can't connect to my carriers 4G/LTE network but the 640 LTE can. So I made the right choice getting a 640!

 

[RumoredNow]

Here is the link to that site: WillMyPhoneWork.net - Check if your phone works on a network

It is not clear to me if that site understands import phones from other regions and Lumia definitely gets a lot of variants.

It says YES, but how does it know I'm not asking about the T-Mo 640 being released in the US???

I don't trust the site for import/out of region matches as there is no way to specify that.

 

[MassDeduction]

What you are showing as "American" on that chart is useless in the US for anything but EDGE speeds...

Why do you say that? It says it supports band 5 (850MHz, AKA CLR) in 3G. On AT&T that'll get you 3G speeds in many areas. It's also worth noting that it has LTE band 7, which won't work in the U.S. but *will* work in Canada, which could help some people (including Americans travelling to Canada).

Overall you're right that you really want PCS and AWS over 3G and LTE, so I'd look for a variant that has them.

Does anyone have a list of all the variants? I see that Expansys has the RM-1113, but I have no idea what frequencies that one supports. I'm ready to pull the trigger if it supports even just a few key frequencies (CLR over 3G and band 7 over LTE would be enough for me).

 

[RumoredNow]

One band does not cut it for me to recommend a phone. I have no way of verifying for a user that it will be the one band they need in every area they frequent or plan on traveling to. Now if a user researches heavily for themselves, as you appear to do, then that one band may be enough.

For me to recommend a phone to someone in the broader and undefined location of "the US" I would stand by my qualifiers I've already posted above.

P.S.: I'm waiting for B&H photo to start listing the LTA Unlocked 640/640XL as they really know how to list the radio spec... And they ship to Canada if you are interested.

 

[Nagoyablue]

Here is the link to that site: WillMyPhoneWork.net - Check if your phone works on a network

It is not clear to me if that site understands import phones from other regions and Lumia definitely gets a lot of variants.

It says YES, but how does it know I'm not asking about the T-Mo 640 being released in the US???

I don't trust the site for import/out of region matches as there is no way to specify that.

You get a choice of models.

Try checking a 520, or your 1520, for example. Next, you can choose the correct RM number. So it's deffinately the correct phone.

The T-mobile from the US isn't on there yet, as only phones that have actually been released are included. So it's giving you the correct current line-up of 640 varients availiable.

It also tells you which bands match, so you know if it's just one band or 2 for 3G etc.

It's basically not failed me yet. It literally finds the bands for each model and varient, and compares them to the bands that each carrier in each country uses. It basically does what you recommended, but automatically and quickly. As long as you know what model you have, and you can find that exact model (the RM-915 in the case of my 520), it's accurate.

 

[MassDeduction]

One band does not cut it for me to recommend a phone. I have no way of verifying for a user that it will be the one band they need in every area they frequent or plan on traveling to. Now if a user researches heavily for themselves, as you appear to do, then that one band may be enough.

For me to recommend a phone to someone in the broader and undefined location of "the US" I would stand by my qualifiers I've already posted above.

I'm all for qualifiers where appropriate. I replied not because you recommended caution, but because you said something inaccurate. You said the person *would* get nothing better than Edge speeds. However, because AT&T has a lot of 3G on CLR, many Canadians and Americans *would* get 3G most places. AT&T has a lot of CLR licences across the U.S. Ditto Rogers, Telus, and Bell. Ditto many regional carriers. In many places, they only have CLR for 3G (especially in rural areas).

So I think the appropriate response to the person is that the device doesn't support all the frequency bands that you'd want for AT&T, and that might reduce data speeds or even hinder coverage. Promising they'll only get 2G is not a "qualifier" as you suggest, it's a specific statement that may or may not be true. So in effect I was replying not because you'd used a qualifier, but because you hadn't.

That said, I appreciate that the intricacies of frequency support are lost on most people. Look at the people who comment on Windows Central articles on inexpensive AT&T devices asking whether they will work in Italy, or Bulgaria, or whatever. There's clearly confusion on this point. That's why I agree with you that qualifiers and circumspect recommendations are good, and that any outright incorrect statement (i.e. a phone with 850MHz 3G support will definitely get only Edge speeds on U.S. carriers) is bad.

 

[RumoredNow]

EDGE is the best anyone can guarantee with the facts as presented...

*shrug*

 

[MassDeduction]

You get a choice of models.

Try checking a 520, or your 1520, for example. Next, you can choose the correct RM number. So it's deffinately the correct phone.

The T-mobile from the US isn't on there yet, as only phones that have actually been released are included. So it's giving you the correct current line-up of 640 varients availiable.

It also tells you which bands match, so you know if it's just one band or 2 for 3G etc.

It's basically not failed me yet. It literally finds the bands for each model and varient, and compares them to the bands that each carrier in each country uses. It basically does what you recommended, but automatically and quickly. As long as you know what model you have, and you can find that exact model (the RM-915 in the case of my 520), it's accurate.

Thanks for that link! I'm blown away, the site is awesome. It hasn't failed me yet either, and I put it through its paces this morning. It correctly got the difference between the Lumia 1020 RM-877 AT&T variant vs. the Rogers variant (AWS 3G being turned on for the Rogers variant, off for the AT&T variant).

I tested it against the Blu Win HD LTE which is (in the grand scheme of things) a not well-known handset, and was just released days ago, and it nailed it. It knew the released version was the X150Q, which I didn't know myself despite having researched it and actually already owning one (it arrived two days ago)! I looked at the box and, sure enough, it does say in small print that it's the X150Q. The site correctly knew that the MBS support for the Win HD LTE was band 17, which isn't even stated on Blu's website.

I'm really impressed, I tested it on the trickiest questions I could put it through and got good results in every case. Given I change my handsets frequently, travel to the U.S. occasionally, and like to import handsets that at times have bare-bones support for North American frequencies (I once ordered a Lumia 1320 that only supported band 7 LTE, and band 5 3G, which constitute only two of the five frequencies my carrier in Canada has deployed), this site is now part of my favourites. In a *big* way. Thanks again!

 

[MassDeduction]

EDGE is the best anyone can guarantee with the facts as presented...

*shrug*

I'm not sure AT&T's Edge coverage is better than their band 5 coverage. In many places their Edge is running on CLR, their PCS having long been upgraded first to HSPA, and then to LTE in many places. In fact, their new deployments probably don't include Edge but likely do still include Band 5 3G, so their Band 5 3G coverage might be better/broader than Edge now.

I'm not trying to be contrarian. I just don't understand the reasoning behind failing to acknowledge that this phone supports a key AT&T frequency, one that's long been a key part of the backbone of their network.

 

[Davide Carozza]

Hey all, I'm trying to learn about frequencies/bands and was hoping to ask a question. If I plug in the Lumia 640 Dual SIM LTE that is currently on Expansys USA into the WillMyPhoneWork link, it tells me that I should get 2G, 3G and 4G LTE coverage on Ting (MVNO that uses T-Mobile for GSM). The 2G and the 4G LTE make sense to me, but not the 3G. 3G on Ting runs on 1700, which is not listed in the Expansys link:

http://www.expansys-usa.com/microsoft-lumia-640-dual-sim-unlocked-lte-8gb-orange-276480/

Since the 4G LTE coverage in my area is good, it isn't a big deal, but would I not get 3G coverage? The link says yes but my (limited) understanding of frequencies says no. Thanks for any answers you might provide.

 

[MassDeduction]

EDGE is the best anyone can guarantee with the facts as presented...

*shrug*

You got me curious, so I went to AT&T's website (here: AT&T Coverage Maps - 2G,3G and 4G LTE Coverage Map | OpenSignalMaps - OpenSignal) and turned on 2G coverage only. I then turned on 3G only. The 3G-only coverage was drastically broader. The breadth of AT&T's 3G is primarily on CLR (band 5).

AT&T's coverage map appears to agree with my supposition that the average user will get more coverage with a handset that supports only 3G CLR than one that supports only 2G CLR and PCS. I expect new AT&T deployments haven't included 2G equipment for a long time (when was the last time AT&T sold a 2G-only device?). I suspect that there's an attrition element, where AT&T isn't bothering to replace 2G equipment as it dies (we saw a lot of that in the latter days of AMPS). As the voracious need for LTE increases, AT&T is shifting old 2G spectrum to LTE since modern handsets don't need 2G for anything if there's 3G present.

Ultimately no one can guarantee coverage. But I believe noting it has 3G on CLR is actually a better guarantee of success than noting it has 2G support, based on the available information.

 

[MassDeduction]

Hey all, I'm trying to learn about frequencies/bands and was hoping to ask a question. If I plug in the Lumia 640 Dual SIM LTE that is currently on Expansys USA into the WillMyPhoneWork link, it tells me that I should get 2G, 3G and 4G LTE coverage on Ting (MVNO that uses T-Mobile for GSM). The 2G and the 4G LTE make sense to me, but not the 3G. 3G on Ting runs on 1700, which is not listed in the Expansys link:

expansys-usa.com/microsoft-lumia-640-dual-sim-unlocked-lte-8gb-orange-276480/

Since the 4G LTE coverage in my area is good, it isn't a big deal, but would I not get 3G coverage? The link says yes but my (limited) understanding of frequencies says no. Thanks for any answers you might provide.

You should get 3G coverage. I believe the description on Expansys is incomplete. Microsoft's listing for the phone lists more frequencies: Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE Dual SIM Specifications - Microsoft - Global

To summarise:

2G Americas: 850 MHz (CLR) and 1900MHz (PCS)
2G Europe: 900 MHz, 1800 MHz
3G Americas: Band 2 (1900MHz PCS), Band 4 (1700/2100MHz AWS), Band 5 (850MHz CLR)
3G Europe: Band 1 (2100MHz), Band 8 (900MHz)
LTE Americas: Band 17 (700MHz MBS), Band 2 (1900MHz PCS), Band 4 (1700/2100MHz AWS), Band 5 (850MHz CLR), Band 7 (2600MHz BRS), Band 28 (700MHz MBS), Band 12 (700MHz MBS), and Band 38 (2600MHz BRS)
LTE Europe: Band 1 (2100 MHz), Band 20 (800MHz), Band 3 (1800 MHz), Band 7 (2600 MHz), Band 8 (900MHz), Band 40 (2300-2400 MHz)

For native T-Mobile coverage you want 2G PCS, 3G PCS/AWS, and LTE PCS/AWS/Band 12 MBS. For AT&T roaming, 3G CLR is useful (and T-Mobile actually does have native CLR coverage in one city due to an oddball result from an acquisition years ago). This phone supports every frequency T-Mobile is throwing at it. It also has every frequency you could ever want for Canadian roaming, including the additions of Band 7 and Band 38 BRS which are used in Canada (and in Europe and Asia as well in the case of band 7), but not in the U.S. unfortunately (thanks to Sprint).

I just ordered one from Expansys on the strength of the above information.

 

[Davide Carozza]

Thanks MassDeduction, that's very helpful!