32 or 16?

[Charlie Badenhop]

I am pretty certain I wound up with the same guy as Tim K. on Omotesando.
Quite helpful
And when I had a problem, a Japanese female who was in charge of service that day, was very kind and exchanged my phone for a new one. She did not speak any English, but my J. is good enough to manage.


You have to consider whether you get double white or single white, and there is a charge of about ¥500 that you for some reason have to take the first month, but can then do away with.

iTm knows what that one is. I forget.

Other than that, I don't remember much in the way of options.

You will use up your data max almost immediately every month, but no worries since they do not charge you extra for the extra data.
Plan on spending about ¥7,000 a month if you do not do a lot of talking on the phone. I think iTm averages ¥10,000 a month, or more.

Be sure data roaming is OFF when you travel overseas, or you might wind up with a very unpleasant, and surprising monthly bill. Which mean, keep it off all the time, as far as I know.

Once you have a phone, I think it can be very helpful to sit with someone and their phone, and have them walk you through things, even if like me, they are not at all a techie.
I would be happy to do that with you, but I live in Nogata, which is 15 minutes out from Takadanobaba, on the Seibu Shinjuku line. I would be fine with meeting in Taka.

There are LOTS of fun and great apps!!

And as Lang said recently, you will definitely want to do a bunch of "poking around" to discover what is what.

[Tim eX]

Well I feel particularly gratified with Charlie's info as I don't have much to add to that - and I hope alot of what Charlie passed on he got from me. 

The charges ( all approx) :

4400 for data
315 for email
980 for white or 1960 for double white
A charge for voice mail. I forget how this works - charges for VM over a certain length - anyway I turned it off
500 charge for visual voice mail - can be cancelled after the first month.

Calls to SB phones are free in daytimes, double white gets half price calls to other networks  - by my calculations over 1 hr calls if evenly between all networks and you'd save money on double white.

My iPhone is my main biz and home phone, I would describe myself as a moderate user and I pay around 10000 yen per month which is within my original budget so I'm very happy.

T

[Jim_S]

Thanks to everyone for all the info. I hardly used my SB cell at all. It was used almost entirely within the family. I might use an iPhone more, but I have my doubts, as currently I'm not riding trains much and seem to have a laptop or desktop where ever I go. Still, it'd be nice to update my iCal at meetings, and who knows what kind of apps I'll find useful.

The charges ( all approx) :

4400 for data
315 for email

Tim, is that a limit of 4400 for data? Does it never go over that?
And is the 315 for email for using SB text messaging? If you have unlimited data, couldn't you just access your gmail account? I never bothered setting up SB text for myself, though I did get it for my son. And then we started getting charged extra for all the spam he was receiving.

980 for white or 1960 for double white
A charge for voice mail. I forget how this works - charges for VM over a certain length - anyway I turned it off
500 charge for visual voice mail - can be cancelled after the first month.

Visual voice mail? As in video calls? Sounds like an invitation to get some titillating spam

[Tim eX]

Yes data is unlimited - I average .5 - 1 gig a month. You can setup any email you like. The thing to watchout for is SMS spam - which you might be billed for . So far I've not had any sms spam.

I would always recommend going to the Roppongi store and getting someone to explain in English - the staff at the Roppongi store are used to foreigners and the different kinds of Qs they have.  I would not recommend the Shibuya store although Lang said he had a good experience there - I had bad and service and staff who didn't really know what they were talking about. Omotedando might be ok but I don't have any data.

T

[Charlie Badenhop]

Heh iTm, I'm gratified that you're gratified!!

Truly.

Of course, yes,
Most if not all I wrote, I got from you.

When I eventually meet a new woman to be interested in, I want to ask you to help me with the operating instructions. I've never been any good at reading manuals, and I just find it all so complicated!

[Tim K]

When I eventually meet a new woman to be interested in, I want to ask you to help me with the operating instructions.

Good, we're back on track. I presume that would be 32? (Or perhaps you're tempted by Carey Mulligan's character in 'An Education')

[Tim eX]

When I eventually meet a new woman to be interested in, I want to ask you to help me with the operating instructions. I've never been any good at reading manuals, and I just find it all so complicated!

No that one you may need other help with :-) I've never been able to find a manual for that type of unit ! I can help with a strip-down and test drive tho 

Apologies Ringo ladies for this sexist and uncouth comment.

T

[Charlie Badenhop]

32 years old?

Would I really have an option?

16 would land me in jail.

I have an acquaintance, the same age as me, who recently got divorced, (he was married to a woman a couple of years younger) and married a woman 31 years younger!!

And guess what?
The latest news is, she is "with child"!

Heh iTm, surprised the system did not bleap out your comment!

[Jim_S]

My 3G iPhone is jailbroken and unlocked and works equally well on a DoCoMo SIM as a Softbank so it may not be a fair test. The 3G(s) with the latest firmware is not easily jailbroken so have a care.

Just wondering - what is the advantage of running your 3G iPhone with a DoCoMo SIM? Don't you need to be paying two carriers at once to do that? Or has the contract on the 3G expired, and you've now switched over to DoCoMo? Is DoCoMo cheaper or have better coverage than SB? Would I, for example, be able to use a DoCoMo simmed iPhone as a compass and navigator while hiking deep in Yatsugadake, where my SB handset has never worked?

I'm already with Softbank, so the question is driven by curiosity, but if one wanted a different carrier, your options would be:
1) Pay for a contract with Softbank, but don't use it. Jailbreak and switch to your preferred carrier. That is, pay double.
2) Wait until your SB contract expires, then jailbreak the phone and switch to your preferred carrier.
3) Buy a used handset (2 years old) from someone whose contract has expired, jailbreak it, and add a SIM?

[Robert Hancock]

First, all this is only doable on 3G and some 3G(s) phones so if you get a newer phone with the latest baseband, your are SOL.  Of course this may change as hackers break into the latest iPhone baseband firmware. My feeling is they have a break but are keeping their powder dry until Apple releases iPhone OS 3.2—no point telling Apple how the locks can be cirumvented too soon after all!
Second, it is not jailbreaking that makes this possible, it is UNLOCKING and that is a different ball game.
Third, it does not make much economic sense having two contracts for this—I took your third option and use a phone from someone where the 2-year contract expired and put my SIM from my SoftBank phone in it after jailbreaking and unlocking. I could just as easily put a DoCoMo SIm in it (and have done on occasion) and it functions as a DoCoMo iPhone with the contract that you have from DoCoMo. But if your significant other has a DoCoMo phone, you can use her SIm in the mountains of Yatsugadake when necessary.
For casual use with DoCoMo like you describe, the better option might be to buy one of the prepaid SIMs that iTM has seen in Roppongi on the street to provide some hours of calls and some GB or data. They are everywhere in London for a few quid and then you swap in the prepaid SIM when in London to avoid global roaming charges.
This is the reason I won't be moving to a newer 3 Gs or 4G iPhone until hackers make it easily unlockable—having bought an iPhone I don't think either SoftBank or Apple has the right to tell me how to use it.

[Charlie Badenhop]

Do I have this right?

Global roaming-
In order to not get killed by exorbitant prices, one should not access their email, or make or receive calls on the iPhone when overseas.....
UNLESS they are connected to a wi-fi hot spot.

Is this it?
The phone will default to wi-fi when connected, and then one can make Skype calls.
Can one also then collect their email via wi-fi? Yes, I believe.

How does Fring come into play when one is overseas?

 

[Robert Hancock]

Yes, overseas, if you leave global roaming on and make calls or send and receive data over 3G you will get a thumping bill.
My son was here at Christmas and forgot to switch off global roaming.  His phone crashed while here and he downloaded some recovery files (he thought over wifi). The amount of data was 28 MB.  It turns out he was connected to SoftBank Japan 3G at the time and he got a £95 bill from O2 on return to London. There have been cases where people have been hit with thousand of dollars in global roaming charges.

[Lang Craighill]

Let me clarify this because it is important.
My wife took her iPhone to Australia and never took it out to use it for ANYTHING - not once. She came home and had over 10,000 yen in data charges, and freaked out. The iPhone is designed to make use of data services as a default, and the pre-installed apps check the internet in the background. (I think she only has one, maybe two, 3rd party apps on her phone)

Once you arrive, or better yet at the airport before you leave, make sure you go to settings, click on general, then click on network, and then slide the data roaming switch to "OFF". If you forget to do this, you will regret it.

This shuts down the 3G system from handling data. It does not affect the WiFi, so if you are in a hotel or any other place with WiFi, you will still have full data functionality through that connection.

[Charlie Badenhop]

Thanks guys.

I was not 100% sure if one could download email over wi-fi without getting hit on the head with a bill.

I keep data roaming off at all times.

It has no meaning when one is in Japan.
Yes?

[Tim K]

Let me clarify this because it is important.
My wife took her iPhone to Australia and never took it out to use it for ANYTHING - not once. She came home and had over 10,000 yen in data charges, and freaked out. The iPhone is designed to make use of data services as a default, and the pre-installed apps check the internet in the background. (I think she only has one, maybe two, 3rd party apps on her phone)

Think about turning the continuous internet checking off too, even in Japan. Do you really want your phone to be constantly checking for email, etc? (I don't have an iphone, so I haven't actually done this, but friends tell me that turning the continuous checking off more than doubled the life of a battery charge.)