creektrails
Newbie
I researched here before going on my two week vacation to England and Scotland. I'll skip the boring details and I hope this helps others that can use this info.
Upon arriving I did not get a sim card at the airport like I should have. I waited and bought one at a cell store in London. They sold me a sim from a company called "Three". They pushed it hard so I figure they profited most from this company.
I did not need to unlock my phone. I simply put in their sim and the phone worked.
I paid 15 lbs about 22.00 usd equivalent for unlimited internet and 400 local miniutes and 400 local texts. I am guessing at the minutes and texts since I hardly used any of them but it was close to that number. (who do you chat with in a foreign country)
I needed to be able to call the US and use the internet.
To call internationally (U.S.) I had to purchase a seperate 10 lb card extra and use a code to call and received a rate at 3 pence per minute which counted down from the 10 lbs. A very good deal.
Problems.
1. Three works pretty decent in cities but almost nowhere else. When I needed the internet for my google maps it was almost never there. Fortunately I bought a garmin nuvi w/ europe maps that worked pretty well.
I would never use three again. I would try the company called Orange. I think it is a vodaphone company
2. In Portree Scotland I had full bars but the phone would not make international calls. After three days of calling customer support with no real help I hung up on them and gave up on using it in Portree.
3. In order to get the internet to work at all on the Maxx HD I had to call customer support and he walked me through changing the settings on the phone. He was fairly knowlegable but non the less it was a pain not just being able to install the sim card and go.
4. Phone service was better than internet outside of cities but dropped calls constantly.
I hope this helps others because I searched and searched before going and couldn't find a lot specific to our phone.
All in all it was pretty nice having a global phone already unlocked. I noticed others struggling to get their other brand phones unlocked. The 25 lbs total that I paid for two weeks was a bargain I think compared to getting big red involved, even though I had issues. I never ran out of anything minutes or otherwise. It helped tremendously when searching for B&Bs in the middle of cow fields to be able to call the owners for directions.
edit: when I landed in DFW I simply put the VZ sim back in and it worked fine.
Upon arriving I did not get a sim card at the airport like I should have. I waited and bought one at a cell store in London. They sold me a sim from a company called "Three". They pushed it hard so I figure they profited most from this company.
I did not need to unlock my phone. I simply put in their sim and the phone worked.
I paid 15 lbs about 22.00 usd equivalent for unlimited internet and 400 local miniutes and 400 local texts. I am guessing at the minutes and texts since I hardly used any of them but it was close to that number. (who do you chat with in a foreign country)
I needed to be able to call the US and use the internet.
To call internationally (U.S.) I had to purchase a seperate 10 lb card extra and use a code to call and received a rate at 3 pence per minute which counted down from the 10 lbs. A very good deal.
Problems.
1. Three works pretty decent in cities but almost nowhere else. When I needed the internet for my google maps it was almost never there. Fortunately I bought a garmin nuvi w/ europe maps that worked pretty well.
I would never use three again. I would try the company called Orange. I think it is a vodaphone company
2. In Portree Scotland I had full bars but the phone would not make international calls. After three days of calling customer support with no real help I hung up on them and gave up on using it in Portree.
3. In order to get the internet to work at all on the Maxx HD I had to call customer support and he walked me through changing the settings on the phone. He was fairly knowlegable but non the less it was a pain not just being able to install the sim card and go.
4. Phone service was better than internet outside of cities but dropped calls constantly.
I hope this helps others because I searched and searched before going and couldn't find a lot specific to our phone.
All in all it was pretty nice having a global phone already unlocked. I noticed others struggling to get their other brand phones unlocked. The 25 lbs total that I paid for two weeks was a bargain I think compared to getting big red involved, even though I had issues. I never ran out of anything minutes or otherwise. It helped tremendously when searching for B&Bs in the middle of cow fields to be able to call the owners for directions.
edit: when I landed in DFW I simply put the VZ sim back in and it worked fine.
