Prepaid iPhone or Droid to work in Europe (Belgium)?

[IronMac]

I'm with macphanatic on that...get a used Nokia E71 and you're good to go in Europe. I've been able to use one to tether to my MBP for Internet access.

[trisho.]

Thank you so much to everyone for your help. I'll go through & respond accordingly.

IronMac, what's the name of the site listing prices of unlocked phones?

rRg, how much did that BlackBerry set up cost you & your daughter?

I'll answer more later. I'm on my crappy phone

[rgG]

trisho,
My daughter had her BB Pearl already on T-Mobile, it is an older BB, so all we had to do was call CS and get them to give us the unlock code. They will unlock a phone for you, if you have it on their system for a certain amount of time, and we had been with them for a while.

Once she got to Spain, she bought a local SIM card, actually it came with a cheap Nokia phone, for IIRC about 30 euro. It also came with something like 10 minutes of prepaid airtime. She just popped the SIM out of the Nokia, put it in her BB, and she was good to go. Be sure all your contacts are stored on your phone as well as the SIM card, so that you will have them when you change the cards. She just purchased more minutes/airtime as she needed them.

She then had a local Spanish number and could send and receive calls and texts. She did not use any data services, so I can't say how much that would be, and I assume it would vary by carrier. Your friend in Belgium can probably find you the best deal, since he/she will no the local sources.

If you want to keep your Sprint account here, I know T-Mobile allowed us to "pause" my daughter's US account but still hold her number and it cost something like $10 a month. The world would surely have ended if she had lost that phone number, , so it was a good thing we could keep it without having to pay the full monthly bill.

I know you can buy unlocked GSM BlackBerries from places like Newegg, and others, so you might give them a look see. I have no idea how much getting BB BIS service in Europe would cost, but maybe your friend could also find out if that is possible with a prepaid setup.
HTH

Rhonda

[IronMac]

Here's the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/choreograph...otostream/

The prices seem to be from August 2010 but it should give you an idea.