[Resolved] Assistance with a Second Hand Note8

[Hlzimmerman29]

Hello! I've tried Google, but um did not know how to word my search. .. I need anyone's extensive android note 8 knowledge here.
Today I bought a second hand, pre-owned note 8. I have verizon. It's a model from Samsung themselves. Put my sim in, nothing. Now, up top it says 1 aside of the tower strength bars. .. in the settings, it says sim 1 and sim 2, but no physical sim slots that I have found so far.. (Idk if there is 2!)
Went into cellular network, had to do a search, only brought up AT&T and T-Mobile, not verizon nor sprint, or anything else. Model number says sm-👎950...
Can anyone tell me what I'm dealing with? I've had many phones and I've never seen this before, and I had a note 8 6 months ago, so I know this is strange to say the least. ...

 

[mikedt]

Hello! I've tried Google, but um did not know how to word my search. .. I need anyone's extensive android note 8 knowledge here.
Today I bought a second hand, pre-owned note 8. I have verizon. It's a model from Samsung themselves. Put my sim in, nothing. Now, up top it says 1 aside of the tower strength bars. .. in the settings, it says sim 1 and sim 2, but no physical sim slots that I have found so far.. (Idk if there is 2!)
Went into cellular network, had to do a search, only brought up AT&T and T-Mobile, not verizon nor sprint, or anything else. Model number says sm-👎950...

Can you confirm and post back the complete model number? Because if it's a dual-SIM phone it cold be the variant intended for Asia, places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia etc. If it is that, it will NOT work with Verizon nor Sprint, and most likely why it's not finding those US CDMA/EVDO networks. Although it should work with T-Mobile, AT&T, and other GSM/WCDMA networks in the US.

One way to possibly tell, if it's got a Samsung Exynos or a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Exynos ones don't have CDMA/EVDO and therefore won't work with those networks. Something like CPU-Z will tell you that.

There's also a European dual-SIM unlocked variant of the Note8 as well, again this one will not work with Verizon or Sprint. On dual-SIM S8s and Note8s the second SIM fits in the tray in the slot where a micro-SD usually goes, so it can have one or the other. Samsung doesn't officially distribute any dual-SIM phones in the US or Canada.

Should be able to determine what exact variant of the Note8 you've got here.
https://www.techwalls.com/samsung-galaxy-note-8-sm-n950-model-number-differences/
Hopefully it's not a SM-N9500 or SM-N9508 because those are for mainland China, and don't have Google on them.

 

[Hlzimmerman29]

Definitely sm-N950... that's it, in the phone settings under about phone/status info. I was afraid I'd gotten a clone, but it's definitely not. Good news is, I got 5 serious buyers for it lol. I did put an att sim in, voila it worked, so you gave the correct answer! You're a god, tyvm