Question about bringing phones

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Originally Posted by sandman66

Dont care about internet, we are on vacation. Just want to be able to call a driver when we need a ride. Might be borrowing one from Linston, but want to have a plan "b".
I have an old flip phone lying around. If I can find the charger can I make that work? Its probably 10 years old, have no idea if would be "locked".
Like I said, phone technology isnt something I have ever concerned myself with.

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Hey Sandman....I work for the local phone company here in Saskatchewan. The old flip phone is more than likely locked and a CDMA phone so it likely won't work with the cellular offered in Jamaica. The iPhone is your best bet and the guy above the digicel store does a good job of trimming the sim card to fit into the slot on your iPhone. Make sure you have a straight pin or the 'iPhone' Sim tool to pop open the compartment on the side of the phone to access where the sim card is. I have done this in the past and had no issues. We have also bought just a cheap Digicel phone and it cost like 30 bucks....we just top up the minutes online every few months to keep it active and send a couple of messages with it. Like its been said though keep the phone low key because things like that are very popular down there. Borrowing from Linston is likely the easiest thing to do.....

Sandman,

Sent you an email. Phone will be waiting for you

Cap

Thanks all for the info. I agree, not a fan of my wife bringing her iphone, but you know women, they are set in their ways lol
Got the email Cap, thanks.
Jeeps packed, heading out the door shortly. Partying in downtown Winterpeg tonight!!

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Originally Posted by sandman66

Thanks all for the info. I agree, not a fan of my wife bringing her iphone, but you know women, they are set in their ways lol

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I can relate. My wife likes to bring her iPhone, too. I just have her put it in airplane mode, then connect it to the hotel wifi. That way she can use it around the hotel to message folks back home and use her apps, but we don't bring it off the property.

Have a great trip!

Original iPhone 5 on Verizon came unlocked with CDMA and GSM capability. A true world phone when combined with a local SIM card. Digicel now sells trimmed SIM's for them.

I save my older generation iPhones for travel.I unlock them and they work great for travel. Never a problem getting right size SIM card in Jamaica or Europe.

Good news if you have a US Sprint phone..the basic international plan is now free and allows free unlimited texts from Jamaica to the states and also to receive..also data is free but is only 1g so it is very slow..and calling is only 20 cents a minutes calling out to states and receiving...I no longer use my Jamaican phone as it is over 20$ to load up international and local minutes..ect..I was going to drop Sprint and try Verizon but now will keep it for certain as this saves me alot of money and convenience when on the rock..

If you have a Canadian cell phone, that baby is locked. The Government recently put through laws that our carriers can no longer prevent us from unlocking them. Locally in Canada, a carrier will unlock your phone, but it's about $50 to do it. And they don't make it easy to do.

There's a guy upstairs from Digicel, across from the Scotia bank, that will unlock it about for USD10. Just stand outside Digicel, and there's a staircase to your left. He does repairs, too!

You will need a Government issue photo ID to get yourself set up with Digicel and, I would assume Lime (we use Digi) do the same. We pay about USD15 for 1,000 international minutes. Yes, One Thousand minutes. We don't have a data pack. You can use the international minutes locally, you're just using "international", but that's a lot of minutes to use up on a 2 week vacation - and they keep adding minutes on!

If you're a frequent or regular annual visitor to Jamaica, with Digicel (and again, I assume Lime would have a similar programme) you can top up your account on line from home, for about $3 a month thru the year and keep you number active, and have the same one the next time you go down.

We don't bring our phones down. We have a phone we use strictly for Jamaica. It's an old Motorola flip phone our kids got in Europe in 2010. It's fine.
I believe you can get a pretty "no brainer" phone down there for about $30-35.

Remember, Canada is the world leader in exhorbitant cell phone and cell services costs. (Yay, us!) Our government even set up a page on their website telling us we pay too much. You gotta love this country!

mi unlock HTC, PANTECH, LG, ZTE and some MOTOROLAS...phone has to use a Sim Card....no iPhones, Samsung or Nokia

Cool Runnings, Marko