Globe Telecom just announced that they’re gearing up to offer the new Nano-SIMs in Globe Stores this month. These Nano-SIMs are smaller than the microSIM that’s being used in a number of high-end smartphones like the iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S3, Nokia N9, and the HTC One X.
Although there are no phones at the moment that use Nano-SIMs, it is expected that the soon-to-be-announced iPhone 5 will be the first to use this new SIM standard.
According to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the new Nano-SIM cards will be 40% smaller than the Micro-SIM, the smallest SIM card design to date, and will measure 12.3 millimeters wide, 8.8 millimeters high, and 0.67 millimeters thick.
That’s the only advantage Nano-SIM cards will have over the regular and microSIM ones. This new size will give phone manufacturers more space for more compact designs, higher specs, and larger batteries. It’s important to note though that unlike the microSIM which can be used back on a regular SIM slot via an adapter, the working portion of these Nano-SIMs have a smaller footprint than regular ones so it might not be possible to switch back to a phone that uses regular SIM cards with a Nano-SIM.
According to Globe, they ordered as much as 5x more Nano-SIMs than its regular SIM stocks and one need not be a rocket scientist to figure out that the iPhone 5 might indeed hit our shores this month.
