Backpacking for 7 months what phone will work?

sarahmccarthy

Hey

Im bagpacking for 7 months through parts of europe, iran, pakistan, india, nepal, china, thailand, laos, vietnam, cambodai, singapore, malaysis then end up in oz!! I plan to stay on in oz so I will buy a new sim card there.. But what phone should I use for travelling to get texts and to be able to ring home etc.. At the moment I'm pay as you go with Meteor and my phone hasnt great coverage wer I live so cant imagine what it will be like when Im travelling!!!

I've only a cheap Nokia phone.. what is the best phone to use while travelling and also the cheapest network I should use??? Some people have recommended I get an Ipone, but Im afraid this will be very expensive to use internationally and also if something happens it or it got stolen, it would be a lot of money to lose!!

Thanks if anyone could help

PandyAndy

Not too sure how operators work in Asia, or the rest of the world for that matter, but what you could do is just buy some PAYG SIM from each country while you're there and use that on your phone, then bin it when you leave.

Or... bring a small travel netbook and use the wifi connections from hostels and use meteors online messaging service to send texts or use Skype to ring home.

Unrelated, but I was in Kerry last week and Meteor had me on roaming...

Davy

Get yourself a cheap quadband phone. I wouldn't advise getting the iphone for the reasons you have already mentioned.

Just because meteor have poor coverage here in spots, doesn't mean the same roaming. You wont be using meteors network while you are away, all you need to check is meteors roaming agreements in the various countries. If they haven't got agreements win all countries, move on to o2,vodafone etc and check there list.

blaz

No Irish operator has roaming service on prepay in all those countries. Your options are moving to billpay or buying a local SIM. Get a quad band phone in every case.