There are plenty of dual SIM phones on the market these days, but most of them are a hamstrung by packaging issues. Despite their dual SIM capability, this usually comes at the expense of the microSD card slot. Of course, hackers don’t accept such nonsense, and [Tweepy] went about crafting a solution. Sadly the make and model of phone aren’t clear.
It’s a simple case of very carefully shaving both the microSD card and the nano-SIM down until both can fit in the card tray. The SIM is slimmed down with the application of a heat gun helping to remove its plastic backing, saving precious fractions of a millimeter. The SD card is then filed down to make just enough space for the SIM to fit in underneath. Thanks to the springiness of the contacts in the phone, it’s just barely possible to squeeze both in, along with some Kapton tape to hold everything in place.
Your mileage may vary, depending on the construction of your SD card. Overall though, it’s a tidy hack that should prove useful to anyone with a dual SIM phone and limited storage. We saw a similar hack a few years ago, too.
[Thanks to Timothy for the tip!]
how is that a hack?
Because it’s a home-brewed solution to a manufacturer’s shortcoming (a hack is not defined by complexity, but rather effectiveness, IMHO). If that’s not a hack, I don’t know what is.
At east my Nokia 71 would benefit from this. I should test this with some cheap SD card and see if I can pull it off.
I would be too worried about things getting stuck when/if you want to pull the cards out. Wouldn’t take much for the leading edge of a card to lift up slightly and get stuck in there.
Wouldn’t be nice to be able to afford 2 carriers. Always thought if I had money like the people in India I wouldn’t have a problem in life
Depends on the country, we get unlimited data and 2 hours of calls for 4 euro a month here..
@neo2121 Just our of curiosity, where is that?
Depending on the country, having a sim for each carrier was actually the more affordable option because of high inter-carrier call fees. Dual-sim phones were more popular at first in underdeveloped countries where carriers had those business strategies.
Reminds me of the bad old days here in the US, back when we had to pay multiple roaming charges if our phones happened to connect to the wrong carrier’s towers while driving down the highway with our brick-phones to our ears. I do not miss analog cell service one bit.
Closest I’ve ever done to this was cutting pieces of an expired credit card to tape around a Nano SIM to enbiggen it to Micro SIM size. Why? Because to be able to unlock some phone it had to have a SIM from another carrier plugged in, in order to make it prompt for the unlock code. Nobody had a Micro SIM handy, just Nano SIMs.
Popped in modded SIM, turned phone on, entered unlock code, rebooted phone and it was now usable with any GSM network.
I used to do this but applying heat by placing the SIM card on a kettle and checking it every few seconds. However, my pocophone has too little leeway and I couldn’t close the tray whole using this trick.
While this might work, I’ve ruined 2 times 32GB microSD and one SIM card while trying. Then I went and purchased this: https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32848914399.html
If you have a phone in case, you won’t even know it’s there. Not as elegant, but works 100%.
I’m using Sim card extension cable to use dual SIM+SD. If I followed your process, I will end up damaging my SD/SIM/phone.
Since you can buy another phone for $20, working on projects like this means you place approximately zero value on your own time.
Ah, yes. That logic is so flawless, why carry one phone when you can carry two!
Oh and we all live in your country, use your currency and phones cost as little as 20 of those monies. Wake up, seriously. In some countries I’ve been to the cheapest phone isn’t cheap on the average salary (even for a feature phone), carriers have messed up pricing structures (but the SIMs themselves cost nothing), and they treat you badly for calling people on other carriers. From what I’ve heard American carrier monopolies are just as evil. Why do you see any disadvantage to doing something like this when the phone makers provided the capabilities but not the means? Your shortsightedness amazes me, especially considering the context of what this website is for.
Also, it doesn’t take a genius to get said $20 phone if it’s available. If someone bought a phone that features dual SIMs, they’ve obviously made a conscious decision that they need dual SIMs. Think of the people who need to carry a work number on them at all times. Think about people who travel between countries all the time. Think of the people who are simply trying to save money. There’s a lot of reasons why someone would want one phone with two SIMs, and also where this hack will be beneficial.
Dual sim functionality allows you to roam internationally and only carry one handset. You can still see who is trying to get hold of you on your home sim, and call back on the cheap local sim. Carrying 2 handsets is inconvenient particularly if you don’t typically have a handbag or backpack. Charging both may also be an annoyance as a cheap $20 handset will possibly have a different charger .
Having dual sim at home is also useful as you can have a very cheap data only plan on one, and a very cheap call only plan on the other.
Carry two phones if you want, but I’d prefer just the one.
This was a constructive comment which made valuable use of my time as it may help other people. Your comment made zero use of your own time, and everybody else’s who read it.
That’s the “time is money” paradigm. There are other ways of valuing time too. Creative time, meditative time, hobby time, etc.
Dual SIM… as if that ever worked properly…
In the one plus 3 & 6 phones I’ve owned drywall sim works brilliantly, two connections, works seamlessly.
This looks exactly like my sim tray! The little bezel cap is even the same color. I say this, because I’ve had this exact thought, looking at my tray. I use a Motorola e5 Plus. Internationally, it’s sold with Dual-Sim as a featured capability.
Looking at my tray, I could see that the only thing differentiating the two permutations, was a narrow brace that I imagined could be replicated with narrow-guage wire (I was just going to use epoxy to affix it, though). Then, I could see that the Sim would have to be cut (more like shaved) to the smallest dimension technically possible.
This has actually heartened me to the idea of attempting this neat, quick little hack, myself. I think I’ll try to get working this weekend and try to let you guys know how it works out. If you don’t hear from me, well…
I loved the dual simcard phone, I even more loved with triple sim card and it works awesome.
Idemia http://www.Idemia.com has a product microsd+sim. Much more elegant than this solution .