suggestions-unlocked cell for 3rd world countries

I have traveled before using an unlocked phone and buying sim cards. It was three years ago and things have changed in that period of time. I also tried a I touch but didnt find enough wifi service to bother. Things might have changed..looking for suggestions for communication devices in area of Morocco, egypt, india(north) china(big cities) Thailand

My unlocked iPhone 3G is the most valuable travel tool imaginable. I've had flawless internet access in New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Pulling up google maps in rural china while using google translate with locals who don't speak a word of English is priceless. My China Mobile prepay costs me $10 usd a month. In Japan I had so much bandwidth that I tethered my netbook to my phone and did a skype video call with my parents from a train station. I walked my laptop around introduced my parents to the random Japanese people waiting for the train. For the past three weeks, I teamed up with two Danish guys and they joke that they'll miss my iphone more than they'll miss me.

Enough said...thanks for the report. sincerely

Where did you buy an unlocked iPhone from? I understood they were only available through AT&T unless you hack it to unlock it. Let me know where did you get yours? I would love to have one.

Cheers

travel droppings wrote:Where did you buy an unlocked iPhone from?

I unlocked mine myself. The current unlock hack works on all versions, so if you buy a 3G or 3GS today, you can do it youself as well (mac only for the moment, see http://blog.iphone-dev.org). Otherwise, you can buy them pre-unlocked on eBay (and then avoid the contract hassle).

Worst case scenario, you can purchase a SIM chip shim on ebay that will make any sim look like an AT&T SIM to the iPhone, thus avoiding the need for any software hack.

The information above is misleading. If you buy a 3GS today you cannot unlock it. Only the old 3GS with the old boot ROM can be unlocked. The Dev Team blog he links to even says as much.

Generally, any 3GS made after about November of last year will likely not be unlockable, but you may have better luck with a refurbished unit. I bought a refurbished 3GS last December and it was still unlockable. Of course, you can always (and probably should) buy a used one, and as long as it's old enough it won't be a problem to unlock.

If you have the money, you can actually buy an unlocked iPhone straight from the factory. I believe contractual obligations to AT&T prevent that from being the case in the U.S., but if you're in Canada, France, or the U.K., you can purchase them via the Apple Store. But you'll need an address in one of those countries, or just buy one when you're passing through.

Yeah, I'm seriously considering bugging one of my Canadian friends to get me an unlocked iPhone 4 when it comes out up there.

AceTracer, I've found your posts really helpful. If one had the 4G, would he/she eliminate the netbook while traveling? May matter if he's making a living blogging or not.
I'd appreciate your (well anyone's) opinion.

I'm still carrying a netbook which I use to backup and upload my photos online, as well as type longer emails and blogs. Having my own computer for photo storage is nice because I can borrow people's memory cards if they happen to take pictures with me, so I can get my own copy, and if I lose my camera I won't have lost all my pictures.

Just to illustrate again how awesome the iPhone is, I just arrived in Shanghai and, as expected, there's an app that contains the entire shanghai metro system using the GPS to tell you the closest station. Also I'm using Pleco chinese-english dictionary app which contains audio recordings of a male chinese person speaking 30,000 of the most common chinese words. Also the Lonely Planet phrasebook which speaks a few hundred of the most common phrases. Lastly, I just stopped in to a China Mobile office and optimized my service so that it will now cost me around $5 a month for my current data usage load. Oh, and I also have the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide books on the kindle app on my iPhone so I don't even carry the hard copies. Gah, and the currency translator app I use daily. Seriously I don't know how people travel without it.

Darn, wish I had known all this at the start of my trip as my iphone 3G on contract with Canadian "Ripoff Rogers" is useless for calls ($3-4/min) or data (expensive!!!) where Wi-Fi isn't available. Made for an expensive clock!!

I have an unlocked Android phone (Google Nexus One), which I've been using with the MaxRoam service (http://www.maxroam.com). Their incoming rates seem to be pretty competitive (with free SMS through a Belgian mobile phone number) and you can save the hassle of juggling around SIM cards and unused balances if you are moving through countries fairly quickly. In addition, they can also assign local numbers from the US (and other countries). I've partnered this with Google Voice (http://www.google.com/voice) so I can route calls as I wish and get free voicemail. So far, I've been pretty happy with this setup.

smartcandy wrote:AceTracer, I've found your posts really helpful. If one had the 4G, would he/she eliminate the netbook while traveling? May matter if he's making a living blogging or not.
I'd appreciate your (well anyone's) opinion.

It's a common misconception, but the iPhone 4 is not 4G. It's a "4th generation" iPhone. A.K.A. iPhone 4.

Since 4G networks aren't nearly as common, its absence isn't a big deal for most folks, but if you buy one expecting 4G speeds, you might be in for some disappointment.

Android isn't too shabby with applications either. There aren't as many as in the iPhone store, but Google makes some pretty damn handy apps that would be great for traveling. Besides Google Translate, Google Maps, flight/hotel/taxi locators, currency converters, and Transport Maps, there's Google Goggles. What's fascinating about Goggles is you use your camera phone to take a picture of something, and Goggles tries to identify it, whether it's a picture of a taxi, a restaurant, or a sign in a foreign language.

Pretty neat, huh?

With a little bit of technical wrangling between the Sipgate and Google Voice services, and the Sipdroid and Google Voice Call Free applications for Android, I have just successfully set up a free (to any phone number in the U.S.) internet mobile phone.

To dial any non-U.S. numbers you'd have to add money to your Google account, but the rates are pretty low (2 and 3 cents in China and Thailand, respectively.)

Pretty neat proof of concept. Takes a bit of patience but it's worth it.

smartcandy wrote:AceTracer, I've found your posts really helpful. If one had the 4G, would he/she eliminate the netbook while traveling? May matter if he's making a living blogging or not.
I'd appreciate your (well anyone's) opinion.

That's exactly what I intend to find out. I'm getting a factory unlocked iPhone 4 from a friend in Canada on July 30th, and two weeks later I'm going on a one week trip between Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. It's a bit of a dry run for my next three month trip starting in September.

So far, I've been able to replicate everything I need on my iPhone. Some things even work better than they do on the desktop because there are specialized apps. The only drawbacks I've found is downloading video from the internet and viewing it in a playable format. This is mainly useful for watching movies and TV shows that come out while you're on the road. Though to be honest, I rarely get a decent enough internet connection on the road to download large video files anyway.

Other than that, everything else has been very doable with maybe a little more hassle. Safari crashes a bit more than the desktop version on bigger sites; obviously the screen is smaller; but otherwise no complaints. My biggest concern was taking, editing, and uploading pictures and video, and the iPhone rises to this challenge easily. I also thought the lack of Flash might be a dealbreaker, but it has yet to be a problem since there are HTML5 versions of everything I've wanted to see.

Though I haven't personally field tested an iPhone 4, or any iPhone, as the only "computer" you take on the road, I really can't see it not meeting your needs unless you need to do professional work.