Get Connected With This New Crop of World Phones For Verizon (And Maybe Sprint)
Activities: Tips and Resources
Author: Sascha Segan
March 31, 2004 -- Up until now, Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS subscribers have been locked out of enjoying the power of world phones. Available from Cingular, T-Mobile, Nextel and AT&T, world phones let you bring your mobile phone and US phone number to practically anywhere on earth.
Right now, Verizon phones work in Canada, Mexico, and South Korea; Sprint phones work in Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, most of the Caribbean, and much of Latin America. But if you're going to Europe, you have to rent or buy a second phone for the duration of your trip.
That's all about to change, thanks to some announcements at the CTIA Wireless trade show last week. Both Samsung and Motorola announced the first phones that bridge the technologies used by Verizon and Sprint, known as CDMA, and the GSM technology used in Europe and much of the rest of the world. Both phones are targeted to the hard-core business traveler, but frequent leisure travelers who want to use their phones in Europe should also take notice.
The Samsung SCH-A790 will be the first to hit the market, and we hear Verizon will be the carrier. It's a beefy black flip-phone that looks a little like what Darth Vader would use if he were a CEO. It sports a bright color screen, a camera that takes and sends 640x480 pictures, and it can be used as a computer modem, but the big selling point is that it works in over 100 countries. Expect it to appear in May. Samsung isn't announcing a price, but if we were to guess, we'd pick the $200-300 range.
Sometime this fall, that Samsung model will be joined by the Motorola A840, a super-phone with a one-megapixel camera (good enough for 3x5 prints), expandable memory, a built-in MP3 player and the ability to make calls almost anywhere in the world. Motorola hasn't announced which carrier it's working with yet, so that phone could appear on either Verizon or Sprint.
There are still a few mysteries surrounding these phones, and Verizon and Samsung don't appear to be ready to pull back the curtain yet. If you're interested in taking your phone overseas, though, keep your ears out for answers to these questions:
How much will roaming calls cost? Right now, Verizon and Sprint let you rent a second handset when you go to Europe, and they both charge around $1.50/minute for calls. That's expensive, but in line with other carriers' roaming rates. We expect that's around what calls will cost from the new worldphones, too.
Can the phone be unlocked? Most US phones come 'locked' to one carrier. If you can get your phone unlocked -- which is permitted by some carriers -- and travel to Europe or Asia, you can insert a prepaid chip that gives you a local phone number and much lower calling rates, sometimes up to 90% below what your US carrier charges for local calls. If the worldphones can't be unlocked, buying a cheap European phone for long trips may still make sense.
These two phones are a great step forward for anyone who travels abroad frequently, especially to Europe. They help you stay connected with home without the complication and confusion of renting a phone -- whether that outweighs the potential cost of calling on these phones, on the other hand, is up to you.
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