SIM Card Size for New Product

cellphonetelemetry

I'm working on designing a new product, primarily for use in Europe. It is a low cost telemetry system for all intents and purposes.

The question I have is: what size should the sim card be? SIM, mini SIM or nano SIM? I know most US phones that have come out in the last year (smart phones) seem to use the nano SIM. Is this also true in Europe? I can not find any affirmative data on the web. Basically I want the most readily available SIM size.

Best Answer

You seem to have left a gap in your list and sim card names can be a bit confusing. So for clarification Sim cards come in the following sizes

  1. full-sized sim (85.60mm x 53.98mm): credit card size. Used on some really early phones afaict.
  2. mini-sim (25mm x 15mm): this was the standard for many years and often gets referred to as a "regular sim" or similar, presumably because hardly anyone remembers devices that took the credit card size sims.
  3. micro-sim (15mm x 12mm): used for a while smartphones and tablets
  4. nano-sim (12.3mm x 8.8mm): seen in more recent posh smartphones and tablets.

The last sim I obtained in the UK came as a breakaway card that supported all sizes from the ancient credit card size down to nano sim

Given that the networks still seem to be supporting the credit card sized sim that no new phone has used for many years I wouldn't worry about availability of sims and would just go with whatever you think your users will find easiest to work with.

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