Phone for Thailand and USA

[gawguy]

I think the last two suggestions were good. Get two Nokias or a refurbished Motorola V180. I should just get two Nokia's I'm sure, but I will look at Tuk.Com for the Motorola. All this is new to me so when I'm told "AIS is on 900" I have no idea what that means. What does it mean?

 

Thanks guys,

GG

[Guy Himmaparn]

It means that AIS (1-2-Call) operates on the 900 band. DTAC (Happy-D) uses GSM 1800, as does True. In order to be able to use a GSM phone in Thailand it will need to be GSM 900/1800. The largest US GSM carrier, Cingular, operates on 850/1900, and many of their phones are dual band only so they will not work in Thailand. Buy a GSM "world phone" (quad-band model) to gaurantee that it will work in both countries.

[OCgringo]

to get your minutes not too expire for 1 year you need to buy the T-mobile $100 refill card

 

$25-$50 refill cards have much shorter time before your minutes (and Sim card) expire,

 

If you get a referb Motorola make sure you buy a new battery and that the charger works on both USA and Thai voltage.

 

OC

 

who used his T mobile all over California today from Santa Cruz down to OC

 

 

[Guy Himmaparn]

For $15 you can now get a new basic Nokia or Motorola pay-as-you-go phone here in the US. They are dual band models but for that price you might be better off buying your cheap used Thailand phone over there, then picking up one of these when you return to the US.

[Old Hippie]

I bought a Motorola Razor (pure crap phone IMHO) which is a quad band. I paid the Homies in E. Oakland $15 to unlock it for me, works fine in USA or LOS, just change the SIM...not sure how prepaid SIms work in the USA, but the rates are rediculisly high here.

[HeartThais]

I think the last two suggestions were good. Get two Nokias or a refurbished Motorola V180. I should just get two Nokia's I'm sure, but I will look at Tuk.Com for the Motorola. All this is new to me so when I'm told "AIS is on 900" I have no idea what that means. What does it mean?

 

Thanks guys,

GG

 

Actually, getting two phones is the better way to go. I now realize that it is quite annoying to switch sim cards back and forth to get access to stored phone numbers or text messages.

 

Btw, you may not use text messaging now. I resisted for a long time. But once you start, you may not stop. So I'd get a phone that has adequate texting features and storage memory.

[manaomaiminam]

You bring up a good point. If you are going to change sims, make sure you store your phone numbers on the phone, not the sim. I did not do that the first time around when I switched sims between USA and LOS, and had to go out and re-store (not restore) all my numbers onto the phone memory (most phones have that option).

[Sporty]

Buy a phone, Tribandor Quad,in Thailand, it needs to be unlocked, 99% are...

 

Go to Ebay and buy, a T-Mobile SIM(less than $10.), at discount, with a refill, to top it, with $100, and get a year to use the 1000+, minutes.

 

If you buy a USA one, of the pay as you go type, it probably will not be unlocked.

[rchapstick]

Just to note, the US cellualr carriers to NOT sell prepaid SIM's ... they sell prepaid PHONES with SIM's. You can, however, buy a SIM on ebay, and pop it in an unlocked GSM phone that operates on 850 and 1900.

 

The US GSM carriers are T-Mobile and Cingular/AT&T.