Offensive Thinking

Nexus 4 SIM Card Trouble

Posted: 2013-02-09

Hey everyone, haven’t written something in a while, so I figured instead of just posting this on Google+, I could tell the tale of how it took me 20 minutes of sweat and fear to prepare my SIM card for my new Nexus 4 on this blog.

Yesterday, my new Nexus 4 arrived. After two years of using my trusted Motorola Defy, it was time for an upgrade. The Nexus 4 is a lot bigger than I like my phones normally, but the price/performace ratio made me buy it anyway. It is a very nice phone though, and I immediately began to set it up.

I saved the part of taking my SIM card out of my Defy and putting it into the Nexus as a last step, because I wanted the phone to be set up the way I like it, so I can immediately use it. The Nexus only takes a micro SIM via a tray on the side though, so I used this guide to cut my SIM to the right size, since getting a new one is a) time consuming and b) costs money (yes, sometimes I’m a cheapskate).

After cutting it and sanding the edges to make it fit into the tray, I had a bit of trouble sliding the tray back in, but by forcing it a little, it finally slid back. You may already guess where this is going, right? Of course, after switching on the Nexus it just told me “No SIM card found”. The card was also stuck in the tray, no way to get it out by pushing the teensy tiny extraction button (why the hell did they make it so small?). It took me about 10 minutes, one bent original tray extractor and one bent needle to finally pop out the tray by sticking another needle between the tray and the casing and gently prodding it until I could grab the tray with my fingers and extract it.

Long story short, after sanding down the back of the SIM card to make it fit better, removing a plastic foil that apparently was put on the SIM to protect the chip and rebooting the phone, everything works. At least for now.

The moral is: don’t use force to put your SIM in the Nexus tray, make sure it fits in a way that allows you to extract it again. Make sure that is does not only fit into the tray, but that its height also fits, so it doesn’t get stuck when sliding it in. Searching the Internet, however, revealed that I’m not the only one who got his SIM stuck in the tray, which makes me feel at least a little bit better ;).