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Buy cell phone with WiFi 6E in Europe or USA

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rom64k

New Around Here
Hello.

I live in EEC, my son is going to USA to work for a while. He wants to buy a Pixel 7a which is WiFi 6E compatible.

My question is as follows:

Should he wait until he arrives there to buy it...or on the contrary if he buys it here, before leaving for the trip he is not going to have any problem or limitation in USA.

The question is about the WiFi bands supported by the phone (I think with LTE there is no problem).

I do not know if the differences between countries and bands, are only with respect to the routers or also the devices that connect to them have limitations depending on the country where they are purchased. In the latter case, you might be interested in buying it there even if you have to wait a bit.

Thank you very much
 
*Willing to be proven wrong!!!* From everything I can see the Pixel 7a appears to be what's classed as a "world phone", meaning there is just one version and it adapts to its location. So the Pixel 7a you would buy in North America would be the same as you would buy in Europe or anywhere else! So the choice of purchase locations might come down to price and even import duties.
*I think mobile operators have changed their policies on this, but a couple of years back it was often cheaper to buy a European SIM with unlimited US roaming (and a European billing address) and use that plan for the entirety of a US stay!
* Roaming on my £14/month all-you-eat (roaming inc) contract now insists that you return to the UK at least once every three months. **Contract was a tie-in with broadband I no longer have.
 

6E though isn't in use in most locations.

For US service though the best deal is going data only and the best package is Tello. Depending on how much data is needed you can get plans as low as $5 or up to $29 for up to 25GB of 5G data and unlimited 2G beyond that. Going data only avoids all the extra voice fees / taxes though which saves a couple of bucks. Tello runs on T-Mobile which for 5G os the fastest in most places around the US.

As to buying the phone here or there shouldn't really matter as Google phones usually don't differ by market all that much at this point. If you want to step things up a bit then look into OnePlus 11 CPH2451 as it goes beyond the capabilities of the GG phone. It actually has WIFI BE (7) built in already, IIRC you can get them currently with 16/256GB + ear buds for $700 right now. They charge quicker than other phones at 100W if you use the charger that comes with them. Even using a decent USB PD charger they do pretty well.

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Specific models will vary though when it comes to the bands they'll work on.

At this point mmWave is all hype and limited to specific locations on either ATT/VZW.
 
check warranty and damage coverage.
phones are starting to eliminate the sim card slot as well. Getting an e-sim to work can require higher level tech support than what you get in a store here (US). If you buy through a carrier in the US, the phone may be locked to the carrier for a period. Depends on the carrier.
 
esim is a bit of a cluster F unless you go with specific brands / carrier options. Most of the carriers will openly support google / samsung / apple w/o much fuss.

locked to carrier phones are an issue but, if you pay in full there's no reason for it and usually not the case.

Tello esim support works for pretty much any phone that has esim built in w/o all of the issues of going with direct carrier plans., I bought my OP11 with the intent to use with Mint (TMO) and their system hasn't been updated to support such a new handset even now 3-4 months after release you have to trick the system into getting an esim by signing up with a different brand and then adding the profile to the phone.

There are ways around some of the games though or just avoid the retail flagship direct plans to avoid the hassle in the first place. Another option for "unlimited" is Visible which runs on VZW's network for a flat ?$25/mo? but, in my testing their speeds weren't all that great. It all depends on how it's being used and what you want the plan to do in terms of performance of data.
 
Going for an international phone - one keyword to look for is "openmarket" - overseas in the UK and EU zones, you may also see this referred to as "sim free".

With Pixel 7a - there are three SKU's, so you have to be careful what to order (best to get direct from Google, as these will be unlocked, similar to how buying an iPhone from Apple direct is also unlocked) - key thing is don't buy the phone from the carrier, and you should be ok - if you do Amazon, just check to make sure it's unlocked...

The key differences with the pixel 7a SKU's is the LTe/5G band support - all are dual-SIM (Nano-SIM and eSIM), and one of the SKU's has mmWave whereas the other two are just sub-6 - but band support is different across the SKU's, so study them carefully - mmWave shouldn't be considered a must-have, FWIW - yes, nice party trick to impress folks, but over in the EU, last time I was in Madrid and Munich, there was no MMwave, and very limited 5G - mostly 4G in the cities, with 3G and Edge as fallback.

 
esim is a bit of a cluster F unless you go with specific brands / carrier options. Most of the carriers will openly support google / samsung / apple w/o much fuss.

You can say that again - been there myself... with ATT to ATT, went amazingly smooth - with Cricket to Mint, was an absolute trainwreck.

TL;DR - talk to the carrier first before doing things, and take steps one at a time...

First time - iphone 11 pro physical SIM to iphone 14 pro eSIM - ATT - on the 11pro, converted from physical SIM to eSIM in the mobile UI, no issues there, then turned on the 14pro, went thru setup, and it automatically migrated the account over with no issues - note that the carrier again is ATT, and both phones were unlocked/open market (purchased from Apple directly)

Second time - iphone 6s on cricket (ATT mvno) to iphone 14 on Mint - this was my son's phone - this was an absolute train wreck as he purchased the new phone direct from Mint, so it's a carrier locked phone - he tried to do the port over to keep his number, but didn't have the PIN code, and... Mint throws in a physical SIM card in the box to share with a friend (part of their marketing) - getting back to the PIN code, I get it over to him, and what does he do? He ports his number over to the physical SIM card that Mint threw in the box... a SIM card that is not activated...

Now he's in the 6th level of hell - as he can't call customer care at Cricket (because port out closes the account), he tries to put the Mint SIM into the Cricket iphone 6s, which doesn't accept it because it's carrier locked to Cricket, and the eSIM in the 14Pro is now also dead because of the port...

Long story short - I end up setting a 4 way conference call with Cricket, Mint, my son, and myself - I know people at Cricket over in their engineering group which helped out tremendously - got his number back, cleaned up the SIM situation with Mint...

Only took two days and man...
 
If you want to step things up a bit then look into OnePlus 11 CPH2451 as it goes beyond the capabilities of the GG phone. It actually has WIFI BE (7) built in already, IIRC you can get them currently with 16/256GB + ear buds for $700 right now. They charge quicker than other phones at 100W if you use the charger that comes with them. Even using a decent USB PD charger they do pretty well.

OnePlus has been doing a great job - the 11 is pretty slick as a flagship phone, about the only thing it's missing is Qi wireless charging - the US models even have eSIM support while still supporting the 4FF nano-SIM

I've got a test handset, the Nord N20 5G, and for the price, it's a great handset - Amoled screen, Android 12... it's single SIM, and limited carrier 5G support, but TMobile supports all the bands the phone does - it's unlocked, and I have a few SIM card - Tello (great deals there), Mint, and T-Mobile - only complaint I've had with the phone is that Visual Voice Mail never seems to work, even with dorking around with various settings - all the numbers (voice mail server has a number that VM gets forwarded to) and no amount of changing APN's etc, could get that to work - everything else was painless.

Verizon doesn't seem to support OnePlus - but Tmobile is fully onboard - ATT is a bit odd - you can move a SIM over from another handset, but new activations won't work if you use the OnePlus IMEI (device ID) - move the SIM over and all 4G works, but it won't register on 5G.

The Nord N20 5G - it's a Qualcomm chipset, mid-range, but pretty good for the price (Snapdragon 695 if I recall) - just be careful as they have the Nord N20 SE, and that's a completely different handset with a Mediatek chipset, along with a downgrade on the cameras (N20 5G is 64MP on the primary, and it's a good camera for the price).
 
Only took two days and man...
2 days is good for Mint when something isn't straight forward. I picked up one of their trial sims for free somewhere for 7 days / 250mb or something along those lines and then went to convert it to a regular line and wow....that took forever for them to figure out. Apparently those are meant to be used and tossed when done with the trial period thus requiring another sim to actually activate a new line and then port.

The best advice I have for anyone though is just port your number to google voice for $20 and never worry again. Once it's there you're relived of any carrier stress when messing with phones and sims. if you need another number to port into a carrier for a discount just setup another email with google and request another number for free and port it out for $3 to get your discount.

esim though I was set on going in head first thinking obviously the carriers and MVNOs have this figured out since they all clamored and baited Apple 14 esim only handsets for their $$$$ monthly. Obviously not the case though in real life. Even a few months into OP11 being released it's hard to find a straight forward carrier activation. TMO has/d a deal where you could sign up w/ esim for a month for free but, their stupid app didn't recognize the IMEI as being acceptable but, going through the website did. To get the deal you had to use the app so.... NO. USMobile had a similar deal w/ their VZW side for 3 months but, having tried the VZW network with Visible that's a no go even for 3 months of free data.

Qi wireless charging
I hope that's a joke. It was/is a joke if you're even considering it on most phones at 10W it's going to take forever and your phone better be turned off if you ever want to hit 100%.

Visual Voice Mail never seems to work
Yeah, that's mostly an MVNO issue. Then again I haven't tried a Magenta sim to verify. I don't need it though with Google Voice ;)

Verizon doesn't seem to support OnePlus
I can get it to work / verify w/ Visible
Didn't after the initial release but, they caught on there was a new esim handset available within a month or so and they won't stop e-mailing me to sign up again.
 
I hope that's a joke. It was/is a joke if you're even considering it on most phones at 10W it's going to take forever and your phone better be turned off if you ever want to hit 100%.

Not as a primary charging - it's to keep things topped off in the car - my primary handset is iPhone 14Pro and my Honda Accord supports Wireless CarPlay (and Android Auto) - and that eats battery time if there isn't a charging pad in the car (mine has that, just for that reason).
 
my primary handset is iPhone 14Pro and my Honda Accord supports Wireless CarPlay (and Android Auto) - and that eats battery time if there isn't a charging pad in the car (mine has that, just for that reason).

Because it uses every radio in the phone - BT, WiFi (carplay uses wifi for the audio path), 4G/5G, and GPS/GNSS - on my commute up to my office which is a 1 hour drive using Waze and playing my podcasts, it'll easily suck 10-15 percent of my battery - and lord help me if I'm on a MS Teams conference call...

Just saying - wireless charging is best in certain use cases - in the car is a good one to consider
 
I prefer a heftier top off with 80-100w plugged in hitting a significant charge in mere minutes. Even PD charging at 30w is enough to keep from depleting from a full battery. Having done conference calls from the car before as well it's nice to keep things topped off. I put in a mount though that is bolted to the seat bolt and moves around but is sturdy to keep it stable while on the move. Plenty of distance with a 3ft cable. Then again I'm putting G's on the car that you wouldn't in a Honda. I tend to have my tuning app open for data feedback at a glance for the performance. I took car of the audio drain by upgrading the display to a 10" android unit that has an SD card instead and cleaned a 128gb card in it. The unit also has an LTE modem if putting the sim in it would be more convenient for long haul trips. The display unit though was mostly because of the 3g shutdown that killed the built in modem for Google maps awhile back. I even ripped the center console out and looked at the modem to see if there was a way to just upgrade that to LTE but, it was more effective to just swap the display and use the hotspot function.
 
You're not doing teams in a bumble bee. The road noise would cancel things out on audio or annoy the others on the call. Even my audio at modest speeds does the same. At least I blend in until I step on it and unleash the power under the hood. And it's not an assumption when you stated the Honda.
 
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