My New Phone (No, it’s not an iPhone)

At first, I thought I could get buy without a phone here in Japan. Sure, it was a pain in the ass getting a package from UPS and I seem to be the only person in Japan without one but since I don’t know too many people here in the first place, I thought it would just be a waste. However, as I’m meeting more people and as more of my friend are coming to Japan (or have been here awhile but I just either didn’t know or forgot…), I thought getting a “keitai” would be a good idea.

Boy, is it a pain in the ass to get one of these. First of all, Softbank seems to be the only provider in town with English-speaking service as well as one of the only ones that offer a pre-paid phone service. Neither of those would be a huge problem if I was here longer than two months since I would get a normal phone on a normal contract then but since I’m not here that long, pre-paid is the only way to go. Secondly, most Softbank stores seem to require a Japanese passport or ID (although I’m told you can go to certain flagship stores with foreign ID). Thirdly, because of a recent change to 3G pre-paid service, all the 3G pre-paid phones are sold out.

Luckily, a strange variety store near my apartment called Donki Kingdom (or Don Quijote…for some reason) had them in stock…at half of what most Softbank stores were charging! Seriously, Don Quijote has EVERYTHING from food to electronics to clothes to…uh…other “interesting” items. However, the guy at the front was also not taking my lousy foreigner ID and required a Japanese one. Fortunately, I brought a friend along who was living in Japan and he signed me up for one.

My Softbank 705px (a Panasonic) cost me a grand total of $60, $30 of which is for the phone and $30 for the pre-paid time. I’m not quite sure how much talk time that is but not much is necessary here in Japan as everyone communicates through e-mail. 300 yen ($3) of the $30 for my pre-paid card goes toward an unlimited text and e-mail plan. That’s right…unlimited text and e-mail for $3. Why on earth do we pay such ridiculous prices for mobile plans in Canada?

It’s also not a terrible phone. It’s quite thin at about 15mm, has Bluetooth, a 2.0MP camera (two actually…one for taking pictures of myself and one for everything else) that has a flash and macro mode, has a microSD slot, and does 3G. Pretty impressive for $30. It’s crap compared to some of the ridiculous mobile phones here that have TVs, GPS, full internet browsers and microwaves attached to them but it’s not bad for the price. And I’m told that it’s possible to unlock one of these for use in Canada…although that might cost a bit more than the phone itself.

If you’d like to reach me during the day (daytime in Japan anyways), you can e-mail me at edlau@softbank.ne.jp. I might also be able to use Twitter on this thing but I think I can only send and not receive. I’ll figure that out later.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to subscribe to my full feed RSS and follow me on Twitter!

del.icio.us Digg Reddit Netscape StumbleUpon