Posted by athompson on 4/12/2009 8:45 PM Technology    international roaming, uk, us, ebay, at&t, tilt, 8925, sim, prepaid, pay as you go

Next on the agenda, find a phone.

I have an HTC phone, and as I really like it, I have become very loyal to the brand. So when I started thinking about which phone to buy for my overseas trips, there was only one choice – another HTC.

But which one? I thought that it would be a good idea to be able to use the accessories I have already purchased  with the new device. At a minimum I wanted a keyboard built in to the phone and for it to work with the Celio Redfly.

A-ha! (BTW, that is all the Norwegian I know.) AT&T used to sell the Tilt (aka 8925, TyTN II, or Kaiser), the successor to my 6800 (aka TyTN). eBay is a good source for 8925’s, both original and unlocked. How much you pay has more to do with luck than strategy!

This past week I started my research. What quality was available? And for how much? How do you bid? How can I get over my dislike of PayPal?

I have over a month before I leave, so I didn’t feel any great urgency, and there seemed to be plenty of hardware available. Everything from phones with non-functioning keyboards, to ones that had never been used.

I placed a few bids hoping to pick one up for a song. No luck. Then I started bidding for real based on a dollar amount that I was comfortable with, based on previous auctions.  I failed to win on a half dozen occasions, sometimes by a mile, sometime not. One or two that I decided not to bid on went for very acceptable amounts! Slight frustration was creeping in, but I was determined to avoid the eBay-disease, where you bid more than you could buy the article for new.

Eventually, because I had time to play with, I honed my strategy. I decided the absolute maximum I was comfortable with, and bid that. And then I “won”!

It hasn’t arrived yet, but I have found my phone. Of course, now I need to test it. I have absolutely no experience with SIM’s and none lying around.

A quick visit to a local AT&T store convinced me that they were sending their most useless staff to my neighbourhood. My enquiry about a prepaid SIM (which I now know they used to sell until about a year ago) was met with the blankest of stares, somewhat akin to fear. Apparently, unless you walk in with a bag full of cash wanting an iFone, you’re off their script. They did offer to sell me a GoPhone which I could remove the SIM from.

I was shocked only because of the ease of doing this kind of thing overseas.

So … this raises the question, What do people visiting the US do? And of course there is a bunch of companies who cater for that market.

Next, I will be checking out these companies to see if there is an option to fill another of my scenarios; data only, no talk, so I can connect to my employers Exchange server, while I am at home or travelling domestically. And I will compare that to domestic pay-as-you-go options.