3G phones in Europe
 

A friend wants a "small-single-package-does-all" solution for a phone before he goes to Europe (Spain/Italy/France) this summer. It should be capable of being a phone, media player, email with a wifi connection, camera, gps etc. I was trying to convince him that the N8X0 along with a standard cell phone would be a good solution. But he was adamant it has to be small and one unit. Any suggestions?

1. The next part of the discussion was on where to buy it - here (Canada) or in Europe i.e. the price for a typical unit e.g. Nokia N95 is about $500 Cdn/USD. What is the typical price over there?

2. Approximate price per month charges on a phone bill for a phone that does all of the above - assuming not too much web surfing is involved - except through wifi.

3. Small means something like: 100 x 50 x <20 mm i.e 4" x 2" x 0.7" give or take a bit.

Any help would be appreciated.

TIA

Clive

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

Club him over the head. Then stick the phone in his back pocket, give him the N8x0 with a BT headset paired to both, and he's good to go when he wakes up.

Serious advice: on point 2, the way I (a yankee) hear it, Euros are treated about the same as Canadian dollars; that is, a device priced at 100 USD, will usually be priced at 100 CAN, and also at 100 EUR. So he's probably better off buying it here, if he can find it.

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

Probably more than that I would guess. It is hard to tell as you generally just get them free with contracts, so you never know how much it really costs. I would suspect it is more than canada as leftpondian money isn't worth much so stuff is more expensive here.

Don't know how much non contract charges would be either (generally higher than contract) but I gather that europes data is quite expensive (compared to here, ie the uk).
Probably a look on the orange/t-mobile/vodaphone will give you a good guidline on prices.

Edit:
Had a look at orange.fr, and the n95 is more expensive there, so best get it where you are. Prices would depend on which country you are in though, so hard to generalise.

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

1: Most Nokia phones running Symbian would fit the bill, for example the E51 which I just bought or the 6120 classic. They cost around 200€ without a contract (which would make no sense for a few months). Note that in some countries, it may be difficult to get a card, even pay as you go, without a permanent address.

2: I can't answer the question about network charges. Remember that you have to change from carrier when you change from country. Only thing: data charges are a racket (maybe less so in Italy).

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

Those Canadian pesos are worth at least as much as the u.s. dollar which ain't saying much these days. Since many Canucks travel out of country it isn't hard to find unlocked phones in the corner electronics store. N95's are about $500C as the OP said. So probably cheaper to buy here (Can) and chip it when you get there.
But what do I know, I don't even own a cell phone because of the criminally insane plans up here. When I go back across the pond I'm taking the N800 and WiFI SIP my voice and data needs.

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

Thanks for the help..

I will try and convince him to go the N8X0 route and maybe I'll win. I just love my N800 and the price is right ($230). But then there's the cell phone and GPS one has to carry - or the N810.

I think a separate cell phone is a good/better idea anyway since if you know you're not near a wifi hotspot or don't intend to get lost :D you can leave it at the hotel/backpack and the cell phone alone is much smaller.

The comment from Jerome regarding the potential difficulty to get a pay-as-you-go card when you are just visiting could be the big killer - then the wifi in the cafe's is the great solution - as long as you love coffee! A secondary question to this post would be how common are hotspots around Europe in cafes and/or hotels?

Cheers

Clive

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

Hotspots are fairly common in touristy places, but you may have to move away from the obvious tourist spots to find a free one. In France free-hotspot.com is very common in cafés. www.fon.com may also be a good choice, especially in Spain.

It is possible to order French, Italian and Spanish SIM cards over the Internet. I don't know whether local shops insist on a local address in Spain or France (they don't in Italy, I've been told).

This being said, using a cell phone is considerably more expensive than using the N800 to call over the Internet. And as I said, mobile GSM/UMTS data usage is outrageous.

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

It might come down to expectations. Myself, I am happy to give up the ubiquitous access (urban) of a cell for the much cheaper cost of WiFI since I'm on freakin holiday so *I'll* decide when I'm available online, leave a message and I'll get back to you. My regular phone #s are SIP so they travel better than a cell number. If I'm on business I'll be in a WiFI zone most of the time so no problem. It requires just a little effort when I'm ready to be online but that isn't too difficult. I rarely use pay wifi since that too isn't universal and requires several purchases. I had Fon a while back but they won't be everywhere however since setting up your own gets you free access when you do find one it might be worth doing that too. And pick hotels with wifi, perhaps bring a little travel WiFI AP if wired access is available.

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

I would definitely recommend the Nokia 6120 Classic or E51, the 6120 is about 200 euros unlocked and the E51 is about 300.

They've got almost all of the functionality of more expensive devices like the N95, but for a fraction of the price. The main downside is the physically smaller screen, but it has the same resolution.

If your friend hangs on even longer, you might want to consider the 6220 Classic which actually has MORE functionality than the N95 but for half the price. That's due out in the late summer (you didn't say exactly when this trip was?).

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

Having just returned from a trip across the pond -
I would advise the N800 + an unlocked cell.

Where you can buy a pay as you go sim in most countrys,
the earlier comment about having a permanent address applies.
I also found that some needed to fill out papers and give them passport
type photos (like I did when in India).

Another option is a world sim card (I use this one -
http://www.mobalrental.com/gsm/sim.asp).

Where as the minute rates are not wonderful - it will work in a pinch
anywhere (Ive used it in Ireland/UK/France/Italy/India/Mexico/the carribean) - and there is no contract fee. Just give them a credit
card for billing/shipping, pop the sim in an go. I got mine in about 3 days. It is a UK phone #.

Pay as you go rates in Ireland/UK back to the US were about 1euro
a min - about the same as the mobal sim. So I didnt do it.

In India the local pay as you go rates the the US were almost skype rates...

If you want to try mobal - let me know, as they have a refer
a friend program and it will give you some additional free $$.

Another thought is to enable Boingo on your N800. The have a
pretty good plan ($8month) and then you can access the local
pay wifi networks without having to find an unlocked wifi site.

Ed

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

In Spain simyo (www.simyo.es , Spanish only) offers a pretty cheap prepaid service: 9 Euro-cent/min to any phone – fixed and mobile - inside Spain, and 99 cent for 100 MB (!) of data per day. The data tariff seems to come with a trick: from what I heard the 100 MB are only valid if you consume them in one single connection. So you should make your daily Skype calls in one single session. If you connect various times a day they charge you 9 cent per 100 KB, which seems to me still not exaggerated. International calls are 30 cent/min to most countries, except Cuba, North Korea and Somalia and some others. All that prices do not include taxes (16% on Spain mainland). – They also have relatively decent roaming tariffs inside Europe.

According to the information on their website you need a physical address in Spain to which they can send the chip and where you receive it personally. They do not say that you have to be a national or a resident, so the address of a hotel may work. From what I know they ship usually within two to three days after your order over the Internet. At present the initial cost for the chip is 10 Euro which can be consumed for calls.

On some forums I read that the coverage of simyo is relatively good all over Spain and the data speed is good to excellent.

I have looked into all this because I am also preparing for some weeks in Spain this summer. I’ll go with my 3G cell phone and the recently purchased N800.:)

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

I quite like my Nokia E65 which is a small slider phone, offers quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, and 3G (WDCMA2100 in Europe), WiFi (802.11b/g) and bluetooth.

it does have a VOIP (SIP, not SKype) client for internet phone calls, and you can tether it to the nokia tablet over bluetooth /edit/.

data calls on non-specialised contracts are expensive, but T-Mobile generally offers the best deals with "web-n-walk".

your best bet for making cheap internet phone calls is to stay at a hotel which offers free or cheap wifi - Best Western are one of the few hotel chains which do this!

Re: 3G phones in Europe
 

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I emailed my friend the url for this post. Lots of info to mull over - mind you he doesn't pick up he email very often, but when he does I'll report back his thoughts. Maybe he'll join ITT since the group is so helpful and go with a n800 ;) - we'll see.

Just looking at the suggestions it seems the N8X0 and a cell makes sense though - we'll see!

Cheers

C