KB2000 Best Carriers (US)?

[1337haXXor]

I didn't realize until after I received it that the KB2000 was the Chinese variant. The one I bought said it was was GSM unlocked. I switched over to T-Mobile but have abysmal service where I'm at. The most I've seen from my house all the way to work (which is admittedly, in the boonies) is 1 bar, and most of the time it's just an "x." I had Sprint before which was pretty bad, but at least actually worked. I figured T-Mobile would be the best bet, as they're merging, but that was a failure.

Anyway, the listing says the phone is GSM unlocked and not for Sprint or Verizon, so is there no hope for getting this phone on one of the CDMA networks? I love the phone, but if I can't use it as a phone, I can't do much...

 

[parakleet]

Ugh,

Doesn't look so great my friend.

OnePlus 8T 5G Standard Edition Dual SIM TD-LTE CN 128GB KB2000 (BBK Kebab) Compatibility in United States

Wireless frequency band information for networks, devices, and countries - Stay connected anywhere in the world

www.frequencycheck.com

 

[1337haXXor]

Dang, that's not great. Thanks a ton for the help! I've somehow never seen that site, I've been using willmyphonework.net, which is.. meh.

 

[Dopamin3]

It won't work on Verizon well (if at all) since it's missing band 13. So Verizon is out.

Theoretically it could work okay on T-Mobile since it supports bands 2/4/12 but "boonies" coverage for T-Mobile is trash in my experience. It's also lacking band 71 which travels furthest from the tower (realistically this probably won't make a difference if you already have super poor signal). Some phones on T-Mobile will get native Sprint signal now too- I noticed this behavior on my Pixel 3a XL but not on my OnePlus 8T KB2005. Certainly the KB2000 will only connnect to native T-Mobile. This is reserved for iPhones, Samsungs, Pixels I think.

AT&T might be worth a shot. It supports bands 2/4/5/17 and KB2000 is on AT&T approved device list https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Devices-Working-on-ATT-Network.pdf 17 is the low band coverage (700MHz) just like Verizon B13 and T-Mobile B12. AT&T has better rural deployments too in my experience. It won't get 5G and you're missing bands 14,30,66 but 2/4/5/17 is enough to have a decent network experience.

 

[1337haXXor]

First of all, wow, thanks a bunch for the help!

Yeah, I was trying to get *away from* the big guys like Samsung and Google. I've had LG phones for a while and liked them (don't care for updates, so it doesn't bother me), but now that's a no go..

Saved up for the nice OnePlus, and I know people have said they're kind of "selling out," but they're still super root friendly and very open, so I was excited. I also knew I wanted to switch to GSM (been on Boost/Sprint forever, now), and I figured going to T-Mobile from Sprint would be my best bet, as I figured I'd have T-Mobile's coverage PLUS Sprint's, because of the buyout.

Then I read Sprint users can all fallback on T-Mobile, but not the other way around? Except for your listed "premium" models. And I also didn't figure the "boonies" service would be quite this bad; it's awful.

Other people around me say ATT is awful as well, pretty much only Sprint and Verizon are serviceable. Looking at the frequencies, it has no Sprint CDMA bands and with Verizon it only has one: BC0 (no BC1). I've read that 13 is Verizon's "main" LTE band, but how do we know this information? Is BC0 (800) better than BC1 (1900)? I know that *overall* with Verizon the service wouldn't be fantastic, but as long as there's connection in the boonies, that all I need, really.