There’s really no need to be so snarky. I have already said I am buying one for travelling as I see the use. I can’t use one for my daily home internet needs as my apartment gets almost no coverage in the center and very bad coverage in my study. And I am simply not going to pay for mobile and home internet coverage when I can use neither for sometimes 4 months of the year.
In any case, your last post was very useful overall, so thank you for that.
I am wondering about roaming charges while overseas. That’s expensive enough for regular cell phone use. How much is this for data roaming? For me at this time, yes, price is a major concern.
There are convenient and more expensive approaches, and there are cheaper, but less expensive approaches. The answer is “it depends”.
The most convenient approach for Asia is to call your Taiwan-based carrier before leaving to set up unlimited data roaming. This is 399NT a day for many locales in Asia, including HK and Mainland China. While a little bit blah on the price side, in perspective it’s competitive with many hotel in-room WiFi fees and in most cases out performs the hotel. I believe this offer is also true in the USA, although I have not used this service there.
A less convenient (often frustratingly so due to the difficulty of finding a card), but much cheaper approach is to get a local SIM card with data. This can go from ridiculously cheap (100HKD for 5-days of unlimited data) to more expensive (~250RMB to setup a SIM with 300MB of data in China, with reloads of ~60RMB for each 300MB more). It can also be metered by MB, by month, week, day or even by hour, for example in the Philippines where Smart sells unlimited data in 30minute blocks that amounts to about 10USD per day if left on 24/7 or for 5 days that amounts to half that amount (go figure). It can be as easy as finding a vendor at the exit gate, as in the Philippines, or as frustrating as having to go into the city to find a retailer, as in China, to as strange as having the “rent” a SIM card from a carrier, such as in Japan. It can be nearly impossible to get at all, as is in the USA, where only the “mom & pop shop” Simple Mobile offers prepaid voice+data at 40USD/month for up to 1GB. It can encourage jumping some loopholes as in using an AT&T iPad SIM card in an iPhone in the USA @ 20USD for a month of up to 2GB.
Whatever you do, don’t just roam on data without at least first setting up a daily rate plan with the carrier. This may be the most simple approach (just turn on the phone and go), but it can be costly. The rates are per KB and are exorbitant; a big e-mail or other data pull for even a minute or less could net a bill of thousands and thousands of NT. Be careful with that.
A good place to look is flyertalk by googling “prepaid 3g data sim site:flyertalk.com” and by searching this forum.
This is very helpful stuff. Thank you. The first option is definitely out. I will be back in China for 3 months soon and paying almost NT15,000 a month for phone and internet seems a bit nutty (overseas + local bills). Also, hotel internet is always free and usually reliable (though gmail is getting harder to use these days).
Yeah, it all depends. No great options for me at the moment.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]Can I ask do people think it worthwhile to spend another NT1200-400 for a cell phone when presumably you already have internet at home and a phone? Are you out all time that you need this devise and service?
This is not a rant against technology. I am genuinely wondering. Everytime I think about getting a smart phone I wonder how it would be worth it. I work at home which may make my situation different from yours. The only time I would need such a phone is when I travel but then I would have to use a local plan anyway which means doubling up on payments (paying here while abroad).
Appreciate all feedback. Either I am missing something or my work and lifestyle makes buying a smart phone plan a waste.[/quote]
I’m nearly 100% in the same situation as Mucha Man. Smartphones are cool and I would occasionally use the features. But it doesn’t even justify the purchase price much less the monthly plan. However if I was traveling more or needed work related constant internet access then I would get one.
It’s unfortunate that the GPS in the smartphones is tower based instead of sat based. I need to get a GPS to start tagging waterfalls for something I’m working on.
Its not as expensive as the prices being throw around on this post. I just paid 2500 for lasts years Samsung 3G phone with internet and every feature I wanted GPS internet MSN facebook ect… 585 a month. 2500 for the phone. Just dont get the latest and greatest new phone. Specially if you are not going to use it very much.
Not true for the iPhone (I can’t speak to other smartphones) - the GPS is both satellite and tower based. It still works if the network connections are off, but can be a bit slower, and obviously isn’t as effective if you’re underground (in which case a sat-based GPS isn’t much use either!).
I’ve got Canadian topographical maps on my iPhone that worked great when I was in Canada, with no phone connection - got a little dot showing where I was on the map. Unfortunately I don’t (yet) know how to get similar topo maps in Taiwan, and also the battery runs down in a hurry. The Lonely Planet city guides also work well - you can use their maps to see where you are, assuming you’ve bought that specific city guide app.
(Note to hikers occaisionally using iPhones in Canada: the complete nationwide series of topographical maps is actually available for free online now, to install through, uh, some app whose name I forget. Pretty cool, especially considering I used to pay something like $12 for a single map a decade or two back.)
