Mobile phones are categorized in various patterns. One classifies phones into two types: GSM (Global System for Mobile) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access).
GSM phones require SIM cards, while CDMA phones work without SIM cards.
SIM cards are tiny cards with embedded chips that you need to insert inside your GSM phones before they work.
In comparison, CDMA phones are tracked by their ESN (electronic serial number), which enables carriers that issued them to the consumer to connect with the phones.
They have a list of all phones that can use their network. Once a CDMA phone is activated, it’s tied to that particular carrier’s network.
A subscriber identification module (SIM) is a smart card that stores data and critical information on your phone.
Simcards give your mobile phone the superpowers it needs to carry out its tasks, such as messaging and calling another cell phone. Most often, accessing the internet won’t be possible without a SIM card.
While it’s true that all mobile phones require a SIM card to function, SIM cards don’t need to be of uniform size.
Evolution of Simcards
The first generation of SIM cards was the size of a credit card, and the form they exist in today shows how much SIM cards have evolved as an essential mobile phone component alongside mobile phones.
Over the years, mobile phone technology has evolved tremendously, and SIM cards of different sizes have also been produced.
The primary model of Simcards was recognized as the Standard cards, following a more compact model called mini-cards.
The standard cards came from the micro cards and then the most recent model, the Nano cards.
The different versions of SIM cards available today have been condensed into three simple models: the standard SIM, the micro SIM, and the nano SIM.
What’s a Standard SIM Card?
The original full-size SIM, which was the size of an ATM card, was perfectly suitable for the early GSMs that existed.
Still, as mobile phone technology improved and phones themselves started to shrink in size, followed by other components inside them, the SIM became too large.
The first solution that existed was the thumbnail-sized Standard SIM. A standard SIM card, forgetting the name standard, is not the most common SIM card.
Although, it was the most common when launched – Hence the name Standard.
Nevertheless, after the launch of the standard SIM, they were provided as part of the full-size SIMs for compatibility with older mobile phones that still use the older card-sized SIMs.
But as time passed, the standard SIM cards became full-size cards where the subsequent models were cut out.
In the early days, all the phones used the standard sim, including big-name phones like the iPhone 3GS.
The standard SIM is rarely used now, but it is still found in some feature phones and basic phones.
Smartphones produced in the last seven years will certainly not come with it.
What’s a Micro SIM Card?
For many years, the standard SIM was the only option available until mobile phones started reducing in size again, getting smaller and thinner. Space became an issue and the components inside phones needed to be smaller.
The answer was the Micro-SIM, which was created in 2003. However, most mobile phone manufacturers kept it mute for years, only to fully adopt the model in 2010.
The Micro-SIM was only one step down compared with the Standard-SIM, and the missing size was all useless plastic. The Micro-SIM’s dimension is 12 x 15mm.
What’s A Nano SIM card
The change was inevitable; a few years after micro-SIMs became mainstream, nano-SIMs entered the picture, eliminating all redundant plastic.
Nano-SIM cards, which measure 8.8 x 12.3mm and are essentially just tiny chips remaining on the original SIM card, were introduced in 2012.
These SIM cards are borderless, meaning the plastic around the chip is tiny and almost non-existent.
These days, nano-SIM cards are the most widely used. If you are using a smartphone produced within the last 3-4 years, you are probably using a nano SIM card.
Difference Between Nano SIM and Micro SIM
The only difference between a Micro-SIM and a Nano sim can be found in their form factors.
- Micro-SIM cards have a third form factor at length and width of 15mm and 12mm, respectively, while nano-SIM cards have a fourth form factor at length of 12.33mm, width of 8.8mm, and thickness of 0.67mm.
- A Micro-SIM card can easily be trimmed or cut out from a Standard SIM card and converted to a Nano-SIM card. Nano-SIM cards can also be easily trimmed from Micro-SIM cards as this creates a lot of space in the latest smartphones, but Nano-SIM cards cannot be inserted into a phone whose SIM port was built for a Micro-SIM card unless SIM adaptors are employed.
- The difference between micro-SIM and nano-SIM cards can also be seen in the fact that micro-SIMs have third-generation cellular chips, which are a more compact version of standard SIM cards.
Nano-SIM Cards are the fourth generation. They are smaller than a micro-SIM, small enough to keep the gold portion, and have merely enough insulation around it to avert short circuits.
SIM cards were condensed because the discarded portions unnecessarily occupy useful space on mobile phones.
This extra space can be used to extend the size of the phone’s battery or expand other components, and their functionality will increase depending on their size.
However, the difference between these SIM card models is confined to size.
A standard SIM with 4G enabled and the same storage space will function like a Nano-SIM of similar specification.
In conclusion, the functionality of SIM cards has nothing to do with size or form factors.
Converting Micro Sim to Nano Sim
These days, SIM cards come in one-size-fits-all, such that the Nano-SIM can be removed from the Micro-SIM, which can also be removed from the Standard SIM.
When a SIM card is not bundled that way, specialized tools can convert your Standard SIM to any form factor you want.
After the Nano Sim Gen, What Else should we expect?
It seems unlikely that mobile phone technology will develop a smaller SIM card in the future.
However, the SIM chip must be redesigned to have a form factor smaller than the Nano SIM Card.
On second thought, maybe the world will see the pronounced adoption of eSIMs.
These digital SIMs embedded inside phones will enable mobile phone users to activate a cellular plan from their carrier without using a physical nano-SIM.
Smartphone manufacturers are already adopting eSIM technology, but like the micro-SIM, statistics show its general adoption is on a slow rise.
Currently, it’s mainly in Apple and Google phones, such as the Google Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL, Apple iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 11, iPhone SE (2020), iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR.
The eSIM is a second SIM that enables dual SIM capability on these smartphones; they all have a normal SIM card slot.
