Viability of using dual sim phone with separate sims for voice and data?

[TopFloorBottomBuzzer]

Morning friends,

I've recently cancelled my Vodacom contract and am going back to prepaid (R0.80 per minute billed per second sounds good to me). I'm going to be picking up a handset in the R3000 to R5000 price range (probably a Xiaomi Redmi 3s or Moto G4) and I've noticed that most of these come with passive dual sim functionality.

What I'd like to know is whether it is viable to use one of these sim slots for prepaid voice only and then to use a separate sim for data (eg Afrihost 1gb for R58, as opposed to R149/gb from Vodacom). I use my phone for business and I really can't afford a situation where important phone calls don't come through because the data sim is in use.

I've searched the forum for similar threads, but I haven't found a definitive answer. Any feedback or suggestions would be highly appreciated!

 

[Sinbad]

I have a huawei p8 dual sim.
One slot for fnb data, the other slot for Telkom prepaid voice. Works just fine.

 

[Jola]

Been doing this for years, you are a bit behind.

 

[MickZA]

Never had any problems, MTN pre-paid for voice (had the number since last century and won't risk porting) and Telkom Mobile for data.

 

[Crush]

Easy peasy... Android settings will ask you where to make calls from and which sim for data. Go for it...

 

[R13...]

Easy peasy... Android settings will ask you where to make calls from and which sim for data. Go for it...

Problem is most of these phones have 3G+ from only one of the SIMs and they aren't dual active. It's hard to find dual active types.

 

[dunkyd]

Is that Redmi 3 ok?

 

[Dairyfarmer]

To answer the question, yes a dual SIM phone can have one card for data and another for voice.

Most are "dual stand-by" which means both SIM's are active but when one is busy the other is not active. So you can have both "listening" for calls, but when you take a call on one, the other is inactive. But this doesn't mean that you can't have one for voice and one for data. You can't use both for data at the same time. The software normally asks which to use for data where as calls and sms have the option of "ask first".

The Redmi 3 has the disadvantage of not being a true dual SIM phone. By that I mean doesn't have a dedicated MicroSD slot, it uses SIM 2 slot. Fine if you don't need a a SD card to run extra apps that won't fit on the 2Gb internal memory. The 16Gb phone memory can't be used for apps (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[TopFloorBottomBuzzer]

Hey guys, thanks for all the answers!

@Jola yeah I'm a bit behind, finally got tired of being scammed by contracts. Better late than never

@Dairyfarmer, thanks for the info, was hoping you would reply as I've seen a lot of your posts which were very informative.

Sorry if my post was a little unclear, but my main worry is whether I'm going to miss incoming calls if I happen to be, say, watching YouTube or browsing the web at the time that the call is incoming. If this won't be an issue, dual sim is definitely gonna be the way to go.

@Dairyfarmer I'm not so worried about the SD issue, 32gb should be enough for my purposes (I'm looking at the Redmi 3s Prime with 3gb RAM and 32gb storage, it's about R3000 I think). The 2gb internal memory thing for apps might be a little bit concerning, I'll see what I can find on that.

Thanks again for the replies!

 

[Dairyfarmer]

I've mainly run my dual SIM as a voice backup to my primary voice/data. I never missed a call because data was running. Data is pretty much always on. The data connection may be lost when a call comes in on the second SIM though. Never had a waiting call on SIM2 while busy on SIM1. Maybe I'm not that popular.

I wonder how quad SIM guys keep up?

 

[j4ck455]

I wonder how quad SIM guys keep up?

Whoa, when did Quad SIM phones become available? I've been waiting so very long for a Dual SIM Nexus phone and Google has Pixelated the Nexus into oblivion

 

[Hamish McPanji]

Whoa, when did Quad SIM phones become available? I've been waiting so very long for a Dual SIM Nexus phone and Google has Pixelated the Nexus into oblivion

They are usually very crap phones. Steer away