Does anyone know where is the cheapest place to buy SIM unlocked dual band gsm cell phones?

At mobilecity: (http://www.mobilecityonline.com/wire...esunlocked.asp) the Motorola 7389 can be purchased at 79.99. They are currently out of stock.

Ghandi Appliances (http://www.gandhiappliances.com/gsmb...&BrandID=6) has the same phone for 74.95. This is a triband with a relatively long battery life.

Additionally, there are tons of GSM phones selling on ebay. Make sure you add unlocked to the search.

Bill

I just returned from Ireland two weeks ago. I purchased a phone on ebay.uk and purchased my sim after I arrived in Dublin. The cost per minute is much cheaper this way. Phone worked great even in the islands. Vodaphone dealers are everywhere. (Pubs, church's and Voda phone dealers in that order)
Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the great advice. My wife and I have just returned from two weeks in Ireland. I purchased a prepaid Vodafone mobile for 99 Euro and received 10 Euro call credit at the time of purchase. I went to the nearest internet cafe on Grafton Street and purchased enough time to access the Vodafone website and register online. This online registration gave me another 50 Euro in call credit. The call credit is valid for six months and the number is active for twelve months from the date of purchase. All incoming calls were free. 300 text messages per month were free and all freefone ("800") calls are free.

Following our arrival in Ireland, we phoned friends who were to leave shortly for Ireland and gave them our mobile number. Our friends purchased a Vodafone upon their arrival in Dublin. While our paths never crossed in Ireland, we spoke via mobile phone several times.

Our Vodafone service never failed. Signal was always good. On one occasion, I called my office from Dingle Town and my secretary commented about the clarity.

Our Vodafone mobile will be passed along to my daughter and son-in-law for their next trip to Ireland and then to my son-in-law's parents for their next trip to Ireland. All they will have to do is "top off" the phone with additional minutes and we will already have the number.

I highly recommend the purchase of a mobile phone if you are going to be in Ireland for any length of time or if your plans include multiple trips. It certainly added a level of security and peace of mind for a party six, one of whom was a transplant patient and the ages of whom ranged from 55 to 63.

What a terrific conclusion to this thread - - or update at least..

Perhaps when done with it, passing it down through the family, you will choose to come back here and "sell it forward" to someone who can add more good stories about its use here!

Wow- John - a 99 dollar phone, with 60 Euro of call credit seems like a great deal. Can I ask where you purchased it? We still need a phone for out trip in one month, - how long did it take you to get the phone?

also - what was the per minute charge when you called the States vs calling within Ireland?

I'm from Ireland and i have used both Vodafone and O2. At the moment i am using a pay as you go Vodafone phone. The charges are more expensive than O2 and i have found the coverage on both O2 and vodafone the same. Vodafone does have free voicemail if you think that is something you might be using a lot. When you buy a Vodafone phone you get E10 credit with it and when you register online you get another E50. This is credited almost immediately. The price of phones vary but an offer both Vodafone and O2 have been doing recently is the Nokia 3510i for E99 Euro with the E60 credit.

**** Please be aware that with O2 that credit is not applied in ONE go. It is applied E10 per MONTH for 6 months which is pretty useless if you are only in Ireland for a few weeks. ****

Therefore if i was a visitor i would be going with Vodafone to make use of the credit! If you do not use your Vodaphone SIM card for a year then it becomes invalid. If that happens then why not just keep the phone and when you do return to Ireland then all you have to do is buy yourself a SIM card anyway. You get 300 free texts per month with Vodafone BUT you can only use them online at their webpage. You get an e-mail address also and when you receive an e-mail to your vodafone address you will receive a text message to tell you that you have received a mail and from whom. To send a text message with your phone to the United States it costs 25c. I send and receive texts to the US and there is never a delay.

That's all i can think of, If you have any questions just shout.

IMO do NOT buy a meteor phone albeit they may be cheaper! The coverage is TERRIBLE!

Excellent, informative reply Slightly Demented, thank you so much! I went to the Vodaphone website but cannot order from it as I am not located in the ROI. If I can get a phone for 99 Euro (equivalent to 123 or so US dollars)with 60 Euro of credit, it seems like a better deal than buying a phone here at 90 to 100 US and buying a SIM there. BTW I cannot find the Nokia 3510i on the Vodaphone site, maybe they just sell them at the retail stores?

The 3510i can be seen here. http://www.carphonewarehouse.ie/comm...TAILS.NOK3510I

You can also see it on the O2 website with more details. It does state on the Carphone Warehouse site that it is dearer but in most shops it is E99. It is a very good phone, great sound out of it and a really long battery life. I had one and i'm sorry i changed it.
Shops have offers on all the time so by calling into a store you are bound to find at least one for cheap (no more than 100 euro) anyway.

Any questions just shout :)

I purchased my phone at a Vodafone retail store on Grafton Street. The phone I purchased was a French made "Sagem". It is small, very light and the battery life was execellent. Regarding the text messaging. Yes, it is available from the website. The way we used it was to give my daughters and my secretary my Vodafone username and password so that they could access the site and send us text messages. I reality, it was a text message being sent by my number to my number, but, hey, it worked. The Vodafone charges for calls to the U.S. (described as Band 1 for USA, Canada and North Africa) are 1.02 Euro per minute, about $1.30 per minute at the current exchange rate. Another option is to use an AT&T card or the like which uses a freefone or "800" number in Ireland and costs about 25 cents U.S. a minute. There is no charge for Freefone calls on the Vodafone network. The prepaid Vodafone service, by the way, is referred to as "RTG" or "Ready To Go" service.

Vodafone, based upon my experience, is superb.

Sounds like a great idea to use a phone card for the international calls. We don't have an AT&T card, but I should think we could buy some sort of card there that would allow us to call to the US for less than Euro 1.02/min. I swear, this phone thing feels like it is the most complicated part of our trip!

You can buy cards and most stores to phone international. You dial a freephone number and enter the pin on the phonecard you've bought. I'd use the mobile for incoming calls and for any calls your dialing internationally buy a phone card like swift or something. You can buy them in different denominations E5, E10 etc