I got an Experia X10 Mini pro, but I can't get it to work

May 14, 2015 10:57 PM

I just got a phone from Amazon; we have verified that it is unocked, but when we put the sim card in (wind provider) it doesn't work, and in the settings is has it listed as "wind away" as though it thinks that I am out of their signal range.

We tried a few different sim cards, from bell and telus, and they didn't work either. This is the phone. It's a few years old, but it is so tiny! I really like it - is there any hope that I can get this working? I'm in Toronto.

posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 to Technology (5 answers total)

Best answer: Some creative googling found this.

From similar issues with a nexus 5 and prepaid carriers, i'm willing to bet your network mode settings are wrong. IE it's trying to connect on the wrong mode of 3g(HSPA+ or something when it has the wrong bands for that on that carrier).

I just get the feeling it's trying to primarily connect at the maximum speed on bands that aren't supported instead of slower speeds on bands that are, or... something like that. Something with it having the wrong network types selected.

It's been a long time since i've played with a 1.5/1.6-2.1/2/3 android device, but i remember hearing of issues like this when people unlocked say, the HTC dream/G1.

Definitely try what's mentioned in that thread about switching the available connection types and then post back.

On preview, also try nuking ALL the APN settings and re-entering the APN for your carrier manually. It probably grabbed some erroneous ones that are old/deprecated or something else from the SIM since the version of android is so old. This seems to be the current settings for wind.

Can you try a crappy prepaid SIM from 7-11 or something that operates on a different carrier and see if it works?

As a side note, i've ALWAYS loved that phone and it's size/design. It's still really cool! nothing like it will probably ever be made again. Check out the XDA forum for development on it. There's jellybean/android 4.1 roms! I'm not sure how well they run or how feature complete they are, but that would bring you up to compatibility with and the ability to install pretty much all current apps. If i planned on using this phone in earnest, i'd definitely flash some kind of more modern rom.
posted by emptythought at 11:09 PM on May 14, 2015

Best answer: I've been trying to buy one of these for a while! I am hoping to god that the pendulum swings back from phablets in the next generation. It's an excellent piece of kit and I would say try upgrading the rom.
posted by Iteki at 1:39 AM on May 15, 2015

Response by poster: Awesome, thanks for the detailed info - will try this today and report back. And yea, it is such a nicely designed device. It was funny comparing it with my friend's slab of an iphone.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:23 AM on May 15, 2015

Response by poster: Success! The phone works just fine but for some reason only with Rogers. My friend (who is great with all things technological) tried new and old sim cards and as long as it's with rogers it will work. It wasn't the fact that this phone is European or anything, it just seems that rogers is compatible with older frequencies.

Thanks for the answers though, I will look into upgrading the rom.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:49 PM on May 15, 2015

Is the sim marked as an LTE sim? there is such a thing as a 3G sim.

It may very well have different carrier info and APN settings preloaded on the sim and simply not include the info for older frequencies they don't bother with on newer LTE phones. Call wind, but expect to get useless nonanswers until you get someone by chance who is knowledgeable and knows what the hell they're doing. I've sorted this kind of thing out with t-mobile before.
posted by emptythought at 7:38 PM on May 15, 2015