Samsung S5 - Buy in USA, use with Chinese carrier?

[Hermes42]

Hello forum,

I'm interested in buying a Samsung Galaxy S5 in the USA and giving it as a gift to a relative in China for them to use.

From what I've read, this seems to be possible if I just put in my own SIM card and make a five minute call in the USA before the trip.

But I just wanted confirmation on the details:
1) Is the "S5 G900F International Unlocked" version the best choice for this?
2) Once I make the 5 minute phone call, is it then good to go, for my relative to use her own SIM from a Chinese carrier?
3) Any chance that this phone will support 4G:LTE in China or is that asking too much?

Thanks for the time & info.

 

[SpookDroid]

It all depends on the carrier they'll be using it on. The frequencies the phone supports need to match the ones used by the China carrier. Unfortunately, most of the time these are not the same as the ones supported my American phones or even European ones (the F variant shows up as European version while the I variant shows up as Asian, so I'm pretty sure that means the frequencies are not the same, but I might be wrong...usually these phones only share some 3G bands if at all).

Here you can find the list of supported bands and frequencies for the model you're looking at.
Samsung Galaxy S5 - Full phone specifications

 

[Hermes42]

Thanks. It's requiring a bit of detective work but I found a "worldtimezone" site with GSM country list by frequency bands.

According to that, China has the following bands:

• 3G 2100 China Unicom;
• 3G 2100 China Mobile;
• 4G LTE China Mobile 2500Mhz;
• 4G LTE China Unicom 2500Mhz;
• 4G LTE China Telecom 2500Mhz

And according to GSMArena, the supported bands for SM-G900F are:

• 3G HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
• LTE 800 / 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100 / 2600 (Bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20)

So my interpretation is that 3G will work, but probably no LTE. Unfortunately the Asian variant SM-G900I seems to not be available from any mainstream US source whereas the F variant is easily found on Amazon. Hmm.

 

[SpookDroid]

Yup, that's usually the case. 3G in the best-case scenario, 2G for most international versions. 4G is VERY rare to have unless it's an Asian version (in which case you most likely won't have 4G in Europe or the US).

 

[anon(749368)]

I would look into the sprint model. I know the sprint iphone works on China Mobile on 4G.

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