I just purchased an unlocked Quad Band v190 Motorola cell phone on EBay for a trip to France, but I'm not sure how to test it for operability before we go. I would hate to pop in a French SIM, and not have the thing work.

Can I take the SIM out of my cell phone in the States (Verizon), pop it into the new phone and see if it boots up? Don't want to screw up my Verizon SIM in the process.

If this one works, I'll get a second one for my wife.

Thanks,

Call a cell phone retailer who sells Motorola, or Verizon, for help.

Does your Verizon phone even have a SIM in it? I've never seen one that did.

If it does, there shouldn't be a problem. If it doesn't, or you're still worried, get a free SIM from mobalrental.com/gsm/sim.asp and use that for your testing.

>Can I take the SIM out of my cell phone in the States (Verizon), pop it into the new phone and see if it boots up?
It needs to be a SIM for a GSM phone, your phone may well be CDMA only and may not have a SIM. For testing any working GSM SIM will do. That doesn't harm the SIM.

Verizon is not a gsm carrier an dhence there are no sim cards.....borrow a sim card from somebody whose carrier is gsm (T Mobile US or Cingular) and insert them and it will work.

Thank you all for your prompt and helpful responses. Thank goodness I asked first, before digging into the innards of my Verizon phone looking for a SIM!

Just for future reference: no digging is required. In modern phones, the SIM is always either adjacent to the battery or under it. In PDAs, it may have a hatch cover of its own, but none are integral any more.

Well, I bought the V195 from eBay and it has been charging for 5+ hours. The SIM is loaded and when I switch the phone on, the Moto screen comes up and then the thing goes blank. DH thinks its a lemon.

I am feeling horrible after so much research, watching auctions, finding a "reputable" seller, etc. Not to mention only a few weeks 'til we leave for France.

Please, someone tell me I'm doing something wrong...

Hm. Wonder if it's SIM-locked (usually you get a nastygram, but the fact that the splash screen shows means it's probably a functioning phone).

Have you tried bringing up any of the menus? If you don't have the manual, you can download a pdf from motorola.com

I bought the phone new and unlocked. After a full overnight charge, I'm getting the same thing. A brief flash of life and then nothing. No menus come up.

I am wondering if it is the battery. I hate to go buy a new battery but that might be the best first course of action.

I have the manual. Thanks.

Hi N,

If you don't have your own battery tester, try Radioshack or other place that cells batteries and ask to have it tested.

If it is the battery, your eBay supplier should send you anew one.

DH applied his trusty voltmeter and it tests at 4 volts. He says he still can't guarantee me it isn't the battery. Do I understand why? No...

I have to call the seller when they wake up in CA. At least they supply a phone number. Part of why I picked them...

(sigh)

I don't know if the phone you bought on ebay is a lemon or not,but based on what you posted my guess is that your sim card is not installed correctly or the sim card you installed does not work with that phone.

What I did on my last trip is I walked into a european cell phone store and purchased the cheapest cell phone that they had. (cost 20 pounds). Then As I change countries I buy one of those prepaid sim cards and just switch the chip. That way I have a local number wherever I go and I can give it to people at home that need to get hold of me. This works all over Europe as well as elsewhere in the world.

US cell companies for some reasons lock their phones.

Lex

Well, I removed and replaced the SIM. (It is a TravelSIM btw.) Don't know why it wouldn't work. But anyway, it's back in . The battery is installed properly and the phone is still doing the same thing.

Amy..

Just what happens when you turn the phone on.....also the phone has an indication of the strength of the battery charge somewhere...does it indicate the phone is charged?

Also you may be in an area where the sim card is unable to latch onto and register on one of the gsm networks with which travelsim has roaming agreements (T Mobile USA and AT&T)..dos the phone go to the off position afte a few seconds or can you see the battery meter???

Have you tried the phone somewhere else than in your house?? Do you have any friends with a T Mobile USA or AT&T sim card?

Yes it is possible the phone is a lemon; unfortunately as we all know it happens whether it is a $25 cell phone or a $25,000 car...but I would exhaust all possibilities first before I reach that conclusion.

I was looking at the prepaidgsm dot com forum. Someone there posted about problems with a phone and it was suggested that there might be a problem with the SIM. So here's a question:

If the SIM is bad, should we still see menus when we power up?

I called the eBay seller's number in CA and it is no longer in service. I need another cawfee....

Remove the SIM.
Remove the battery.
Insert the battery.
Power up.
Does it say "NO SIM" or suchlike?

If not, it's probably broken.

What's the eBay auction number?

xyz, I am glad to see you here! Thanks!

Okay, I went outside tried the phone. Same results.

Press on key. After two seconds, the keyboard lights up. Then a second later, I get the HelloMoto screen. It stays lit for one second. There is nothing more. No indication of battery charge.

I am looking at the T-Mobile coverage map right now. It is only two bars of signal strength for my street. But I have bright Orange "Best" coverage for AT&T.

I do not know of anyone with a SIM card. One of my DD's friends has a Virgin phone I think. Can I buy a cheap SIM card? What else can I try? New battery?

My husband was skeptical about this whole idea, but I asked him to trust me. I did so much research here (I think I've read ALL of your posts!) and elsewhere on the net. Yes, it might be a lemon. But, I can't go there just yet...

Robespierre, thanks for the suggestion. I tried. It does not say No SIM.

Auction number is: 190144046868

DH is saying he can measure the battery under load. Any advice as to what the load should be? 100 ma?

Question: does the phone have the frequency band that is for use in the US? We have a Mobal phone that is -not- and it charges up and the T-Mobile SIM from my reg. phone doesn't really display anything that I can recall other than "invalid SIM" or something like that. But once we put the Mobal(UK) SIM in and arrive in Europe (where the freq works), the phone is fine.

Well I see you said it's a Quad band - I'll assume you verified the model is quad from an independent source.