What Cell Phone, Buy Here In Us And Bring?

[Jollygoodfellow]

You can check out your best coverage areas with this link. Choose from the right dropdown as in 2g,3g,4g. http://www.sensorly.com/map/2G-3G/PH/Philippines/Smart/gsm_51503#q=Cebu+City%2C+Cebu%2C+Philippines|coverage

 

You can get some ideas of prepaid here, http://smart.com.ph/prepaid/

 

Depending on where you will be living has some bearing on which provider is better suited, a lot seem to have both ,Globe and Smart or even dual sim card phones to make life easy.

 

You can do a lot more with a smartphone rather than an older style and more likely to work in more locations. 

 

[expatuk2014]

Unlike you lot of old codgers :lol:  here I do love my gadgets !!

I have a dell laptop and our mobile was an original Apple Iphone 3 !! a gift from my daughter in the UK.

I decided we would use Viber or Wechat to talk to our family and friends for free in the UK.

And thats when the problems arose The Iphone 3 did not like Viber !

So I bought my wife a refurnished Apple 5s ! at a cost of 15.000 pesos , personally I had thought about buying myself

a Huawei P8 lite I gave in a bought one !! at a cost of 9999 Pesos !! and it is one amazing bit of kit !

7" screen hd and gps etc etc. and I can now watch you tube videos without a laptop frying my legs !!

And we can now chat with or friends an family in the UK and the states for free !! works a treat in SM food courts !!And as I am typing this I am listening to one of over 1500 mp3 tracks now on my Huawei !!

[jkeenan213]

Thanks all, as always, for the input!  The point is that I have to get a phone anyway here in US for whatever time we have left, I need to return mine (iPhone 5) to the company by end of week.  To offset, we are going to kill our landline and port the number to my new cell so we don't lose touch.  So I have two choices:  1) get a cheapie phone here (without a contract that's still about 50 bucks), trash it when we leave and buy a GSM phone there, or 2) Get a nokia GSM maybe dual sim card phone here, bring it with me and swap out the sim(s) when we get there.

 

At 9999 to 15K pesos, that's 225-335USD, I can do better here for a Nokia dual card 4 band phone (I'm seeing about $100-150).  Don't need all the bells and whistles...but some would be nice.  I'm not streaming video, but some music would be great.  Texting.

 

Renting my home here rather than selling is not an option.  Mortgage is nearly $3K/month, can't get near that in rental so it would be an expense, not income.  Plus I need the equity.  And there is no chance the market here is going to recover fast enough to make waiting worthwhile.  I have two 20-somethings that are staying here, have budgeted a yearly return to US with lodging.

 

And we are committed.  23 visits to PI over the last 20 years, and I lived in Pangasinan for 2 years about 20 years ago.  I understand the adjustments needed (and willing to make more if needed).  In fact, I embrace them, I don't want to "bring the US" here.  I've had 4 decades of it, in a 24/7 business that demanded 60-100 hours/week before the commute...and I am done.  I didn't have my first Christmas off until I was 45, forget all the other holidays they were just regular work days.  We are targeting land in Cebu...AT LEAST 45 minutes from the city, preferably further but we also have 2 wee ones coming that will need good schools and at my age (58), some reasonable health facility close would be wise.  TBH, I'd be happy in Santander, Daanbantayan, Pilar, Santa Fe, San Fran...but not best for wife and kids.  We own land in Guindulman, Bohol and on Biliran...but abandoned building there due to the remoteness.  A happy wife is...well...a happy wife.

 

But I digress.  So, phones.  I have to get one now in any case.  The question is throwaway or a PI-compatible nicer one?

[Jack Peterson]

 The question is throwaway or a PI-compatible nicer one?

 

 

:hystery:  Is that throwaway or be  taken away ( by someone else)

 Ooooooops sorry Dinnertime humour :unsure:

 

Jack :rolleyes:

[bows00]

Get the latest unlocked iPhone 6S Plus and you will be the envy of everyone there. But I wouldn't go flashing that thing in a big crowd, you do not want to end up as a victim of a robbery...

[jkeenan213]

Hahaha.  Not a big fan of the iPhones.  Actually just bought two Nokia/Microsoft Lumia 535's.  Dual SIM cards, unlocked, quad band.  $100 each.  We'll do t-mobile pay as you go til we go, then switch SIMs.  We can then do globe, smart, sun whichever 2 work best.  No swapping sims.  Hope that only gets me molested instead of robbed.  :dance:  But good advice.

[earthdome]

Hahaha.  Not a big fan of the iPhones.  Actually just bought two Nokia/Microsoft Lumia 535's.  Dual SIM cards, unlocked, quad band.  $100 each.  We'll do t-mobile pay as you go til we go, then switch SIMs.  We can then do globe, smart, sun whichever 2 work best.  No swapping sims.  Hope that only gets me molested instead of robbed.  :dance:  But good advice.

 

It can be important to maintain your old home phone number in service even after you go to the Philippines. Financial institutions like banks like to have a US phone number to call you at. Or you may need to call them from a US based phone number. I used both a phone number parking service which I ported my home phone number to then I forwarded that on to Magic Jack. WIth Magic Jack I could just install their phone app on my smart phone and make calls to the US from a US number. That can be important at times.

[jkeenan213]

Earthdome, good point.  What service do you use to park/forward your number?

[earthdome]

Earthdome, good point.  What service do you use to park/forward your number?

 

I used Family Phone: http://family-phone.com/

 

Then I setup family phone to forward to my Magic Jack phone number. Then I used the Magic Jack app on a smart phone in the Philippines to make/receive phone calls. Some one calling my parked phone number got forwarded to Magic Jack which then rang my smart phone in the Philippines using VOIP. Worked great.

Edited October 16, 2015 by earthdome

[Richieboy67]

I have an unlocked lg g3 with a T-Mobile sim and here I also have a globe sim.

I can use WiFi calling even I have WiFi access to take calls, check voice mail, send texts, etc. No long distance charges over WiFi!

I didn't even know I could use tmobile WiFi calling until my friends here told me. :)