Pinky Fingers-On With The Nano SIM Adapter [Review]

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This kit has almost every option covered.
This kit has almost every option covered.

Today the iPhone 5 goes on sale in The Rest Of The World, and it goes out into that world naked and empty, free of contracts and lock-ins. Yes, you can hook up with your favorite carrier and get a subsidized handset, but real men go commando.

And in this case, unless you have some forward-thinking telcos in your country, “going commando” means “cutting your own SIM.”

Which is why we’re taking a timely look at this natty Nano SIM adapter, which will let you put just about any SIM into any phone.

The kit consists of three adapters: NanoSIM-to-MicroSIM (the smallest one in the photo); NanoSIM-to-SIM; and MicroSIM-to-SIM. You can even stack the smallest one into the biggest one to emulate the medium-sized one. There’s a joke about Goldilocks in there somewhere.

It’s worth noting here that the full-sized SIM isn’t the one you think it is. The standard thumbnail-sized card we have all used and hated for years is in fact a mini SIM. The full-sized one is as big as a credit card, and was used in some phones that I actually owned. That a credit-card sized slice of plastic could fit into a phone will give you an idea of how big those handsets were.

I’ll skip the usual The Good and The Bad sections for this review. Suffice it to say that these cards work just fine, and that they’re dirt cheap, at just €2 for a set, or around $2.60. They come from Germany, though, so you’ll likely be paying quite a bit more than that for the shipping.

Instead, I’ll point out a rather excellent extra feature of this kit: you can use it as a template to cut your iPhone 4/S SIM, or any other SIM, down to fit in the iPhone 5.

I’m a veteran of SIM chopping, having skirted O2 Germany’s stupid rules that would only sell pre-paid iPad SIMs to residents by buying a regular SIM, an X-Acto and a metal ruler, plus sundry other SIM-slicing exploits.

Homunculus-tastic!

The trick is to make the cuts so that you trim off excess plastic, while leaving the metal contacts in the right spot for the iPhone’s internal contacts to touch them.

Previously, I have used another, correct-sized SIM to act as a guide. This can be hit-and-miss though. Way better is a SIM cutter. Next best is – you guessed it – an adapter.

Using this adapter you can draw the cutting lines on your old fat SIM just by putting one on top of the other. The only trick here is to make sure you get the card the right way up.

Then you’re on your own. You’ll need to transfer the various carrier settings over to the new phone for it to work, or you may be lucky enough to have it just work. Either way, you can always go back to your old phone using your adapter.

The Verdict

For the price, you really can’t beat this kit. For piece of mind alone it’s worth the money, and once you have it, it can sit in your wallet alongside your SIM-removal tool and wait for the time you need it. Build-quality is kind of moot in this case – it’s not like an adapter is going to take much of a beating – but this adapter is built just fine.

[xrr rating=100%]

Source: MicroSIM Shop

Thanks: Franz!

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