logos999

I intend buying "a few", they sell rather fast at German post offices unlocked F3s for 19.95€ per piece (incl 5€ T-Mobile SIM) . It's a "third world phone" with only the basics but at at good price.

Kellye

Well, 75 cents a minute is still cheaper than T-Mobile's cheapest rate for me which is 99 cents a minute in two of the countries I'll be in and $2.99 a minute in the other!

Linda431

Which country has 2.99? Wow. That hurts.

I use United Mobile and it's 39 cents per minute from U.K, Europe, China, Austraila, Isreal and a whole bunch of others.

Kellye

Serbia...that is where we will spend the bulk of our time in Europe due to the fact that the "purpose" of our trip is a ballet intensive for my daughter which is being held in Novi Sad which is where her ballet teacher is from originally. Since there are only 4 days in Budapest and 3 days in London, I decided that I needed a cheaper option than that offered by T-Mobile. With free incoming and $.18/minute to me from the home phone, my other kids and husband can keep in touch for 10 minutes a day for less than $2/day. That is reasonable in my book.

Captb93

OK - I am very confused and need some clarification. I currently own a basic T mobile under their prepaid plan. T Mobile told me I need an unlocked quad phone & they offer a Razr for $199 on their website. I am not a heavy user and do not need all the extras on the Razr. I see people here buying quad phones on line to use in Europe and buying a prepaid SIM card before leaving. That looks reasonable. I would need a SIM card for multiple countries as we will be moving around. Only needed for emergency contact and one or two calls in country.

Can I buy any basic quad phone that uses a SIM card usable throughout Europe and also be able to use the phone when I return to the US by switching back to my T Mobile Prepaid SIM card? Or does the quad phone have to be a "T Mobile" phone?
I am a novice with cell phones and would like the convenience of using this Quad phone both here and on trips. Can this be done or do I have to purchase a second phone?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. What are my options?
TIA
ED

sjj

If you have an unlocked gsm phone that operates on 1900 mhz, you can put your T Mobile sim in the phone and use it in the US. To use the phone in Europe it should also operate on 900 mhz and 1800 mhz. Either a European style triband, operating on frequencies 900, 1800, and 1900, or a quadband will work, provided of course that the phone is unlocked. The solution my wife and I used was to buy two used Nokia 6610 phones on Ebay (at a cost of about $45 per phone including shipping) and two international sims, United Mobile for her phone and Ekit for mine. Sims are discussed at www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html, and other sims that get good recommendations are RangeRoamer and Cherry Mobile. Good luck.

mrcamp

Tmobile is selling the Moto V195 quadband phone for $39 shipped on the prepaid website. It even comes with a $25 refill. So net cost is $14. Now, that is very good for a quadband phone! I bought 2 (there is a limit of 2 per address) as backups to use on cingular for me and the wife. Tmobile will also unlock your phone after 90 days of service in good standing. That applies to prepaid or contract. I have had a prepaid that I use for backup for a few years so it was not a problem getting tmobile to unlock the phones.

As for sim you can get a local sims or get an internatinal sim that will cover all those countries. As you mentioned, that has been discussed many times.

d_claude_bear

Hello mrcamp:

Can you (or someone else) supply more info?

I went to the T-Mobile web site and found only a $10 airtime credit for that phone offer--where did you see the "$25 refill"?

Will they unlock the phones after 3 months no matter how little airtime you have used? Can you not even use the phones and still get them unlocked after that time?

In a European country, can you use any brand of local SIM, or does it need to be bought from T-Mobile?

Thanks.

Robespierre

The deal is at tinyurl.com/2el8nm

Once a phone is unlocked, it can be used with any carrier's SIM.

d_claude_bear

Thanks, Robespierre. I did not see the special offer at first on the T-Mobile web site.

LynnieD

I'm having a little trouble figuring all of this out. I have Verizon as my carrier and they don't seem to have this "unlocked GSM'.

I want to buy a phone on ebay for my travels to Europe and Asia this year. Once I buy a phone do I need to contract with a carrier here? I understand that I will buy sim cards at the locations I am at.

Once I am at my location with my sim card installed in my phone, if I call someone here do they pay long distance fees for incoming calls from a cell to a cell?

Thanks.

LAwoman

Lynnie - all you need to do is put the local sim card in your unlocked gsm phone and you are good to go. Just make sure your phone is set to the European frequency. A lot of people don't do this and the phone doesn't work and they think there's something wrong with the phone.

I have verizon too - useless in Europe.

I like the motorola V66 for Europe, a good simple phone, you can usually find new ones on Ebay for around $35.00 once the betting dust has cleared. There's a vendor auctioning a lot of them now starting at $.01 with $18.00 shipping.

If you call someone in the US on their cell from Europe it will be billed to them like any other European call.

LynnieD

THanks LAwoman

mrcamp

Yes, they will unlock the phone after 90 days of service in good standing, regardless of how much you use or when you topped it up. I have not topped up mine since December of last year. And, have probably used less than $3 on it this year. I use it mainy for international SMS since it's only $0.10 to send.

BTW, the V190 happens to be a very good basic phone. It's being sold for around $70 - $80 and above on ebay.

mrcamp

Could not edit my post. Just want to mention that (not sure if you will be using a UK sim), my Virgin UK (they use Tmoble UK's network) sim worked in the locked V195. Tmobile UK will also probably work in it. Others have posted the same experience at some other forums. This is likely due to the fact that the network lock or whatever is the same.

xyz123

...and T Mobile UK is literally giving away the sim cards...and they have a new add on where for £2 you can buy 50 minutes (timed in 1 second intervals I believe) of call time to the USA and to Canada.

d_claude_bear

Hello again, mrcamp:

My wife and I will want to have cell phones in Paris in May 2008. That is why I asked about the time period: Would we have to use the phones regularly after purchase in order to benefit from the approach you outlined. We will need to get French SIMS, probably upon arrival in Paris. Any additional info regarding our specific situation?

lss1

I just bought a phone from mobal.com. It is good in 150 countries. You do pay per minute charges, but I think for emergency use and needs it's a good deal. As someone else mentioned, it comes with the adaptors for diff. countries that can be used with other appliances (like laptop) as well.

xyz99

bookmarking

spartanap

I have another question along these lines. We used my wife's Motorola V180 in Europe a couple of years ago. As I remember, prior to our trip, I called T-mobile to "sign up" for international calling. Did this call unlock her phone? We're no longer with T-Mobile, but I'm interested to know if this phone is now unlocked so we can use it on our next trip.