Question US carriers that will support POCO F3 or RealMe GT 5G

[Rankone21]

Hey Everyone,

Currently have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 on AT&T, but recently got the notification that AT&T is shutting down their 3G network and my phone will not be usable. Looking at switching to another carrier/MVNO and was considering between the POCO F3 and RealMe GT 5G.

Can anyone recommend carriers/MVNOs where these phones would possibly work on. I know frequency checker/Kimovil provide the compatible bands. But considering both phones don't have Band 71, I just wanted to check if anyone has been able to use these phones on US carriers and if so how did you go about getting the phones activated with the carriers.

Thanks

 

[Techguy777]

Hey Everyone,

Currently have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 on AT&T, but recently got the notification that AT&T is shutting down their 3G network and my phone will not be usable. Looking at switching to another carrier/MVNO and was considering between the POCO F3 and RealMe GT 5G.

Can anyone recommend carriers/MVNOs where these phones would possibly work on. I know frequency checker/Kimovil provide the compatible bands. But considering both phones don't have Band 71, I just wanted to check if anyone has been able to use these phones on US carriers and if so how did you go about getting the phones activated with the carriers.

Thanks

Well I'm Att and I just ordered the Poco f3 a couple of hours ago. So by next week I'll be able to tell you. I was going to go with the real me gt but didn't because the global model can't be bootloader unlocked and that to me means a no go. If I can't root it I don't want it. It's only a little bit better with specs it has the 888 and 65 watt charging which makes me a little jealous but I have to have viper4 android on my phone so I went Poco f3.

What band do you use for 4g lte? I use band 4 and it's never been a issue. I don't plan on 5g because I barely get 4g where I live

 

[Rankone21]

Well I'm Att and I just ordered the Poco f3 a couple of hours ago. So by next week I'll be able to tell you. I was going to go with the real me gt but didn't because the global model can't be bootloader unlocked and that to me means a no go. If I can't root it I don't want it. It's only a little bit better with specs it has the 888 and 65 watt charging which makes me a little jealous but I have to have viper4 android on my phone so I went Poco f3.

What band do you use for 4g lte? I use band 4 and it's never been a issue. I don't plan on 5g because I barely get 4g where I live

Thanks for the response Techguy, I would be interested in knowing how it works out for you.

Considering that the Redmi Note 5 Global version only has Bands 4 & 5 for 4G, and Bands 2 & 5 for 3G, I believe it is running on HSPA+ on AT&T Prepaid mostly, as I only get the 4G symbol, not 4G LTE.

I did see for the RealMe and Poco F3, most of the 4G bands are supported on GoogleFI, just no 5G.

 

[Techguy777]

Thanks for the response Techguy, I would be interested in knowing how it works out for you.

Considering that the Redmi Note 5 Global version only has Bands 4 & 5 for 4G, and Bands 2 & 5 for 3G, I believe it is running on HSPA+ on AT&T Prepaid mostly, as I only get the 4G symbol, not 4G LTE.

I did see for the RealMe and Poco F3, most of the 4G bands are supported on GoogleFI, just no 5G.

What 5g band do you need? It has n1,n3, n5, n8, n20 and n28, n41, n77, n78

 

[Rankone21]

What 5g band do you need? It has n1,n3, n5, n8, n20 and n28, n41, n77, n78

Oh I just meant for GoogleFI, I don't think they have 5G currently not sure, as kimovil says Not Available. For AT&T and T-Mobile, it was 1 of the 3(AT&T) and 1 of the 4(T-Mobile) in terms of 5G bands.

However I'd be interested in knowing how you go about getting this activated on AT&T since it isn't on their Whitelist of phones that they are trying to limit users to.

 

[Techguy777]

Oh I just meant for GoogleFI, I don't think they have 5G currently not sure, as kimovil says Not Available. For AT&T and T-Mobile, it was 1 of the 3(AT&T) and 1 of the 4(T-Mobile) in terms of 5G bands.

However I'd be interested in knowing how you go about getting this activated on AT&T since it isn't on their Whitelist of phones that they are trying to limit users to.

Im actually getting a free sim card from the government phone through SafeLink but SafeLink is a smaller part of ATT as that's what my sim reads as 4g band Att and I always buy unlocked phones with band 4 and put it in and it works. Nexus 6, S10lite international, moto G4, S7 and S7 edge both all of them same card just insert.

 

[Techguy777]

You don't understand they don't whitelist phones they are just saying these ones they know will work with volte and others will to they won't look at every phone. They won't say Poco f3 or realme because they want to sell Samsung and apple not Poco f3. It's money but if it has the band it'll work

 

[Rankone21]

You don't understand they don't whitelist phones they are just saying these ones they know will work with volte and others will to they won't look at every phone. They won't say Poco f3 or realme because they want to sell Samsung and apple not Poco f3. It's money but if it has the band it'll work

I understand that part, but the above is not entirely true, hence the post. AT&T for example are activating devices based on the IMEI, even if it has the necessary bands they are saying it is not compatible. Some folks have been able to get around this and get them to activate the phone, but some haven't been able to

I don't know how true, but they told me if I were to take the SIM out of my Redmi Note 5, they will not be able to re-activate my phone. I haven't tried this so I can't say if this is actually the case.

It sounds like SafeLink may technically be a MVNO to Tracfone/AT&T, I do know outside of Cricket Wireless, a lot of the MVNOs aren't enforcing what AT&T is doing with their direct account holders. But technically since they are under AT&T's network, this will eventually trickle down, but it is yet to be seen how this will be handled by MVNO operators.

 

[Techguy777]

I understand that part, but the above is not entirely true, hence the post. AT&T for example are activating devices based on the IMEI, even if it has the necessary bands they are saying it is not compatible. Some folks have been able to get around this and get them to activate the phone, but some haven't been able to

I don't know how true, but they told me if I were to take the SIM out of my Redmi Note 5, they will not be able to re-activate my phone. I haven't tried this so I can't say if this is actually the case.

It sounds like SafeLink may technically be a MVNO to Tracfone/AT&T, I do know outside of Cricket Wireless, a lot of the MVNOs aren't enforcing what AT&T is doing with their direct account holders. But technically since they are under AT&T's network, this will eventually trickle down, but it is yet to be seen how this will be handled by MVNO operators.

Yes I am under SafeLink/TracFone which is subsidies of AT&T. But if AT&T shuts off their 3g network I don't think they will leave it on for the SafeLink people. AT&T doesn't have to activate your phone in America their GSM you might have them tell you that like my brother brought the nexus 6 to Walmart for a straight talk card and the lady said it's Verizon we can't activate it. Well they should have stuck a sim card inside because it works on all 4 carries except sprint and Verizon are CDMA which means your phone does have to be put into their system to work but not with GSM networks like AT&T. Just try it once you have a sim card in the us I don't know if your in the US. They will tell you anything to sell you another phone from them.

 

[Techguy777]

I understand that part, but the above is not entirely true, hence the post. AT&T for example are activating devices based on the IMEI, even if it has the necessary bands they are saying it is not compatible. Some folks have been able to get around this and get them to activate the phone, but some haven't been able to

I don't know how true, but they told me if I were to take the SIM out of my Redmi Note 5, they will not be able to re-activate my phone. I haven't tried this so I can't say if this is actually the case.

It sounds like SafeLink may technically be a MVNO to Tracfone/AT&T, I do know outside of Cricket Wireless, a lot of the MVNOs aren't enforcing what AT&T is doing with their direct account holders. But technically since they are under AT&T's network, this will eventually trickle down, but it is yet to be seen how this will be handled by MVNO operators.

I just got my Poco f3 and it works fine on ATT/SafeLink band 4. I don't have 5G so I don't know but it did show the 5g in the upper right hand on display but I checked the speed and it was the same as before so I didn't notice anything 30 to 50 mbps is usual. It's a great phone for the money bench of almost 700k on AnTuTu

 

[Rankone21]

I just got my Poco f3 and it works fine on ATT/SafeLink band 4. I don't have 5G so I don't know but it did show the 5g in the upper right hand on display but I checked the speed and it was the same as before so I didn't notice anything 30 to 50 mbps is usual. It's a great phone for the money bench of almost 700k on AnTuTu

Thanks for confirming. How are you liking the phone so far?

I had an interesting conversation with AT&T yesterday on the whole topic. Their device compatibility system is really cracking on International Phones although as mentioned earlier, this isn't the case with a lot of MVNOs. The Global version of POCO F3 I think supports 6 of the 9 AT&T 4G Bands. But it's good that it's working for you nevertheless.

I think the POCO F3 is fully compatible with T-Mobile's network as well at least it is as per their online device compatibility tool, so that's another good option depending on the area.

Got some time to decide what I'm going to do, but it's good to know that the phone does work on US carriers.

 

[Techguy777]

Thanks for confirming. How are you liking the phone so far?

I had an interesting conversation with AT&T yesterday on the whole topic. Their device compatibility system is really cracking on International Phones although as mentioned earlier, this isn't the case with a lot of MVNOs. The Global version of POCO F3 I think supports 6 of the 9 AT&T 4G Bands. But it's good that it's working for you nevertheless.

I think the POCO F3 is fully compatible with T-Mobile's network as well at least it is as per their online device compatibility tool, so that's another good option depending on the area.

Got some time to decide what I'm going to do, but it's good to know that the phone does work on US carriers.

Well so far so good, I didn't get it til 3pm today and I think I have Covid or the flu so I have been under the weather. But I ran bench scores and it's flagship level power. It charges faster than I was expecting, 5400mA on ampere when my S10 lite is 4500mA on a 45 watt charger so they make more use of less watts. I love it so far I doubt you'll notice a major difference between the Poco f3 and realme gt 5g. I love flashing custom roms and rooting my devices so if realme won't unlock the bootloader and release source codes to build on that makes the Poco f3 more for me.

I think if you buy a snapdragon 870 device if has the same bands as all snapdragon 870 devices and 888 has the same bands as all 888 because the modem is inside the CPU. I could be wrong I'm going to look into it but I think so.

It's a sweet phone the only difference from a flag ship is it's 1080p screen instead of 1440p and it doesn't have a mega good camera.

 

[Rankone21]

Well so far so good, I didn't get it til 3pm today and I think I have Covid or the flu so I have been under the weather. But I ran bench scores and it's flagship level power. It charges faster than I was expecting, 5400mA on ampere when my S10 lite is 4500mA on a 45 watt charger so they make more use of less watts. I love it so far I doubt you'll notice a major difference between the Poco f3 and realme gt 5g. I love flashing custom roms and rooting my devices so if realme won't unlock the bootloader and release source codes to build on that makes the Poco f3 more for me.

I think if you buy a snapdragon 870 device if has the same bands as all snapdragon 870 devices and 888 has the same bands as all 888 because the modem is inside the CPU. I could be wrong I'm going to look into it but I think so.

It's a sweet phone the only difference from a flag ship is it's 1080p screen instead of 1440p and it doesn't have a mega good camera.

That's some good info. Yeah can't be too picky with a budget phone, for a budget phone outside of the camera it has a lot of close to flagship features.

How are you finding call quality so far? That's one thing that wasn't that great with the xiaomi redmi note 5, but attaching a headset resolves the issue.

Hope you start feeling better while enjoying your new phone. Feel better.

 

[Techguy777]

That's some good info. Yeah can't be too picky with a budget phone, for a budget phone outside of the camera it has a lot of close to flagship features.

How are you finding call quality so far? That's one thing that wasn't that great with the xiaomi redmi note 5, but attaching a headset resolves the issue.

Hope you start feeling better while enjoying your new phone. Feel better.

I will have to get back with you on call quality because I do use headphones now. I have the master and dynamics MW08 and there awesome for calls. It's to late tonight to call anyone I'll let you know tomorrow. I can't stand the wait to unlock the bootloader. It takes 168 hours after you start the unlock process so 7 days than I can root and install viper4android