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I've never seen anyone use Willcom outside of professionals. Be aware that the signal also turns to poo poo once you leave urban areas, although this was several years ago so maybe they've gotten better. Anyone have any opinions on the smartphone choices here? I think it's time for me to finally upgrade to either an Android or iPhone, although I would like features that Android phones hold such as Oneseg, and they seem to be better tailored for living in Japan. Can you access the Japanese mobile internet using iPhone? Some of those 3D phones interest me, although I feel that the technology is too young at this point.
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Jul 15, 2011 01:23
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Any reports on Samsung Galaxy 2?
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Jul 25, 2011 15:54
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Be aware that they might find out that you're tethering without permission and give you a huge bill. I had a friend who rooted his iPhone and did tons of tethering, ended up with an absurd bill from Softbank. I guess technically there's no way to tell, but when you're transferring that amount of data then they can get a good idea. He tried to fight it but made no progress and in the end just gave up and paid the fee. Never tried to tether again. Probably an isolated experience but be aware that it can happen.
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Aug 21, 2011 09:48
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Yeah, so what do you guys think about all of the recent talk about carriers capping data services? I don't really know how plans work in other countries, but I wonder if you get locked into a contract now for unlimited data, you'll still be able to keep it when the new plans emerge.
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Sep 16, 2011 04:11
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Huh, SB has an unlimited plan, none of my iPhone friends have ever complained about hitting a limit. This thing would affect all smartphones, it's not related to tethering or whatever. From the news reports I've been watching, it seems like all of the carriers are planning to add limits in the future, probably with fees if you go over the ceiling.
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Sep 16, 2011 05:04
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Hmm, the lack of OLED on iPhone4S is a big disappointment. Wondering if I should just get it or go for an Android phone now. I guess it terms of apps they're pretty equal, yea? My friend has an Android phone and it's constantly freezing up on her, are performance issues like that common?
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Oct 5, 2011 09:28
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All right, I've never used an iPhone before, so how does it work here? Can I access both the Japanese and American stores? I'd want to have the useful Japan-only applications, but if I buy poo poo like productivity software and games, I'd prefer the language to be in English. Is there a way to get both at once?
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Oct 8, 2011 03:08
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I'm just looking forward to hearing people's impression of AU iPhone.tyblazitar posted:Speaking of mixi, is there any clever way to bypass the cell phone registration? I use a prepaid phone, so while I receive the confirmation mail, I can't visit the site. Am I going to have to get a proper plan if I want to register? Some people I know claimed that they were able to register without registering cell phones when they used their school e-mail address, but that didn't work for me. You used to be able to register using normal Email addresses, but they changed it so you need to have a Japanese phone and can access the confirmation through your phone. It was done to get rid of spammers and advertising accounts, and was definitely a change for the better. I guess you'll have to decide whether you think being able to have a mixi account is worth buying a proper plan for. If you don't use your phone very much, then I can't really see it being worth it.
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Oct 14, 2011 02:32
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Any impressions of the 4s on AU? Not many people have been talking about whether or not the reception is more reliable. It's really what I'm waiting on before I make the change.
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Oct 20, 2011 03:06
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I don't have any experience with this, but I've heard from several sources that they'll let you upgrade your iPhone through outside sources if you already have a contract, but won't let you use another phone if you're just signing up from scratch.
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Oct 20, 2011 04:54
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Huh, the lack of AU's preparedness for the iPhone is somewhat concerning, although those numbers of speed are pretty promising. It'll be up to SB's standards around January, yea? I can probably suffer for a few months. I don't understand why SB doesn't just invest in some infrastructure. It's well-known to be the weakest of the 3, hell, I know several people who have both an iPhone and a second keitai from another carrier due to how unreliable SB is. If they actually got their coverage and speeds up to the other carriers, I think that they would be a lot more successful. Anyway, that softbank sucks website says something interesting about Docomo, "from 10/1/2012, Docomo will introduce the 7 GB cap." I wonder how long it'll take for the other carriers to join in, but reading poo poo like that makes me not want to ever sign on with Docomo. If either AU or SB can stick to their guns and keep the unlimited data, I think they can steal a lot of Docomo's business. In all honesty, I think that AU is more likely to cap data than SB, I just hope that it won't affect current contracts.
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Oct 20, 2011 08:49
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All right, I made the switch yesterday but Softbank's servers are down or whatever, so they can't port my number. Hopefully it'll be resolved soon, although it's not like I'm in any rush to change. Had no problems with the whole thing, didn't have the issue that others do with having to buy the phone right away. They initially asked if I had a credit card but I just told them that I preferred to have it taken out of my bank account and they were fairly willing to accommodate me. At least I do have a Japanese card that I could have used if things didn't go so well, but I'm glad I don't have to worry about it, I did make a point to say that my SB and other bills are automatically taken out of my account. Felt kind of strange leaving SB, I've been with them since the Vodafone days and they've been pretty good to me. Having to sign a new 2-year contract was the thing that was the most jarring, almost like it forces me to stay in this country for at least another 2 years. Ah well, I guess it wouldn't be a problem paying the fees if worst came to worst.
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Oct 22, 2011 01:54
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Does anyone have any good recommendations of Japan-specific iPhone applications?
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Oct 30, 2011 01:47
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Navitime iPhone requires a subscription fee. I've been using 駅すぱあと (ekisupato) for my train needs, seems to do the job. No idea about Windows Phone 7 applications. Navitime has a bicycle route thing which has a fee to download but no subscription. I haven't found it to be terribly useful in finding the best route, although it does have some good data and gives you a reasonably accurate timeframe for travel. For the Softbank thing, you have to commit to a 2 year data contract for the iPad2, doing that subsidizes the cost of the actual unit. You have to get at least a 100MB/month plan which will satisfy very few people, but you can upgrade it to an unlimited one (the plan will also automatically upgrade if you hit a packet ceiling when you go over 100MB). Your iPhone data plan can't be combined with the iPad one, so you'd be paying for two plans. If you already have a data contract for your current iPad, this deal is pretty good since you can more or less upgrade to an iPad2 for free. You can also pay a bit more to upgrade to a bigger capacity iPad2. harperdc posted:for the language, for getting around Tokyo, for trains, for staring at idol singers of questionable age? Gonna have to clarify the question a bit more. It'd be like asking for good British or American apps, it's a bit broad. Just things that would be useful to people living in Japan. I've downloaded things like Tabelog, McDonalds, E-plus, Bookwalker, Nicovideo, etc. Can be any type of app that you like, things that have been useful to you while living in Japan.
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Nov 3, 2011 12:56
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That Galaposbrowser thing that someone mentioned before is absolutely worthless. None of the sites that I want to visit work, and half of them just display the normal browser instead of switching to the keitai version. I even went into the options and had it emulate the exact phone model that I was using before, no dice.
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Nov 16, 2011 01:38
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The AU iPhone got an update earlier today, anyone have any idea what it did? I haven't been able to find any info on it.
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Dec 13, 2011 03:53
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dtb posted:I think you're a month late on getting the 5.0.1 update unless you're running the beta of 5.1 that was release yesterday Nah, a popup said a carrier update was available. I installed it, and the network connection restarted. I assume they added features that AU didn't support, but have no idea what they are, no info was given.
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Dec 13, 2011 07:12
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zmcnulty posted:How does the SoftBank one work? Do you have to actually login every time? Where did you get that AU wifi support? I've searched the app store but can't find anything relevant, only info about their Android models. For signal, I'm really not that impressed with the AU iPhone. Their coverage in Kanazawa isn't that great, I'll be standing in the middle of KZ station and be struggling to load things in, even in the downtown districts my friends with Softbank constantly have better connections. Even the underground rooms have better signal with SB, go figure. It seems pretty good when I go to Tokyo though, I can be in places like Shinjuku and have acceptable signal. Ikebukuro seems like a really bad spot though, everything I go there or pass through on the train, there's a good chance that I'll have a really slow connection despite having full bars. The Youtube speeds are pretty good, though. My friends do complain how it can take awhile to load on their phones, but it's really fast on mine. Either way, I can't really recommend the AU phone over the SB one, if they can't get their poo poo together when my contract is up then I might go back to SB (or maybe try Docomo if they get it).
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Jan 10, 2012 11:45
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Recently my iPhone has been constantly trying to connect me to Softbank Wifi spots. The login screen keeps appearing whenever I get near one, and if I stand in the same area it comes up every time I change apps. It's a bloody nusiance to have to cancel it out every time it happens, as I can't use them anyway on AU. This only started to happen in the past few weeks, anyone know how to disable it? I've checked the wifi settings when I'm in the range but it always says that I'm not connected so I can't disconnect/forget the connection.
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Feb 14, 2012 03:04
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I don't seem to have a profile option in my general settings. I never downloaded the AU Wifi spot thing since I don't really see how it would be necessary and I don't want the phone to constantly be connecting and disconnecting as I walk through the streets. I'd be willing to download it if it would somehow override this Softbank poo poo, I'm constantly being interrupted by their stupid login page.
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Feb 15, 2012 01:10
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I use wifi at my office and at my home, I don't really want to have to remember to constantly turn it on and off. I don't care about battery drain or whatever, I just want these stupid Softbank login screens to go away.
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Feb 23, 2012 05:42
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So the latest iPhone update adds Japanese support for Siri. Seems to be pretty good, she can more or less understand almost everything I say to her. One annoying thing is that one of my contact's name is "Nei", so when I want to say ねぇ、 it'll put her name in the middle of the sentence. Anyone know some funny things to say to her? She'll respond to a few odd statements if you say things like 好きだ、 but overall she seems less fun to mess around with than the English version. I'm not a fan of where they put the voice dictation on the keypad-style Japanese keyboard, it uses up half of the language button and is very easy to hit when you want to switch languages. Original_Z fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Mar 9, 2012 |
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Mar 9, 2012 01:17
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Nope, and when you do so you run the risk of getting hit with a huge bill if SB ever finds out what you're doing. I actually know someone who bought the SB Wifi thing and just turned the data off of his iPhone so it's constantly on wifi. I guess with the nonexistant data usage, it ended up being slightly cheaper to have the two devices instead of just using the iPhone for data, with the bonus of having full wifi capability.
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Mar 15, 2012 01:41
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Do not use Boingo under any circumstances. Just type in "Boingo scam" or "boingo complaints" in google and you'll get an idea of the kind of BS you'll constantly have to be dealing with. Why places ally themselves with these crooks is beyond me.
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Mar 22, 2012 09:24
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I got an E-Mail from AU saying that ezweb addresses now support realtime push notifications for the iPhoone, although you have to go through some settings in order to activate it. Apparently they've had the feature since mid-March but they never bothered to tell us until now? Ah well, it's definitely a feature that was needed, glad it finally arrived. Seems to work fine from what I've tested.
Original_Z fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Apr 3, 2012 |
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Apr 3, 2012 08:44
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New iPhone carrier update from AU today, anyone know what it did?
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Apr 16, 2012 09:03
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Apparently that AU iPhone carrier update fixed up iMessage so it's more full-featured. Sent us an email several days after the update, you'd think they'd be more prompt with these things. Anyone seen the commercials with that Siri-knockoff on (I think) Docomo Android phones? The commercials make it look pretty full-featured (of course), and if it has support for local attractions it can really deal a blow to Siri, who still can't navigate you around areas outside of America.
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Apr 24, 2012 14:05
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I've been pretty happy with the AU iPhone's speeds for the most part, things like Youtube seem to load much quicker than my SB friends. Still though, the coverage in Ikebukuro is horrendous, I go there on a regular basis and it takes ages for anything to load, if it does. It's worst at the station but even the radius of a few blocks is unbearable during evenings and weekends. Incredibly frustrating, no other stations give me this problem, Shinjuku and Shibuya are fine. No idea if SB has the same problem or not.
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Aug 22, 2012 09:51
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Hahaha, those maps are really bad. The ones of the busy station areas like Shinjuku compared to the old Google maps make the Apple ones look like they were from 50 years ago or something. The Google Maps app can't come soon enough. What an embarrassment. Apparently Siri still hasn't been properly localized, people who ask for the scores of Giants or Tigers games can only get the MLB data.
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Sep 21, 2012 02:24
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Hah, I like how the main page of the Japanese App Store has a banner for map apps, that's a pretty damning admission of how bad the new maps are. Anyone have any recommendations? I've heard that Mapfan is the best of them all but it requires 4GB of space since it's all offline maps, if I get that then I won't have much free space left.
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Sep 30, 2012 00:09
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I broke down and just downloaded Mapfan. Seems flawless, an advantage of having the maps saved is that they load super-fast. There are also some cool features like famous spots and restaurants that have been on TV, so if you're in a new area you can have some places to check out. The only thing I can't figure out is how to search for something within an area. The local search gives you categories (restaurants, post offices, parks, etc.) and you can't actually type out the name of a place or search for something that isn't in the set list. The option to actually type something out seems to be for the whole country, so if you search for Starbucks you'll get a list of every single one in the country, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, making it more or less useless unless you're searching for a very specific store with an uncommon name. I almost can't believe that this is the only way you can do things, the app is more or less perfect otherwise and I can't imagine them not implementing such a basic feature, but if it exists then it's not very obvious at all. Anyone else use the app who can help? The Apple maps are completely useless where I live. Most of the major shopping buildings aren't listed, or are listed incorrectly (one is shown as a bank, probably because of the ATMs). The major river near where I live is landmarked in the middle of a residential district, and the things that are listed are questionable (why are there so many Parking Meters?). Places of actual interest (like the nearby Round One) don't show up. Most things can only be searched in either English or Japanese, and the maps are completely mixed up so you might have to end up searching in both languages each time. What a joke.
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Sep 30, 2012 11:52
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harperdc posted:And I downloaded Mapion, the recommended Japanese app, and I have only played with it a little but it looks super Japanese so we'll see how that goes (my language ability is good but sometimes I just want to use stuff in the native tongue, ya know?) I found Mapion to be too inconsistent, sometimes searches would yield tons of results, but when I go back and search again for the same thing it'll show nothing. That was the main reason I decided to go to Mapfan, but the lack of precise local searching didn't really help my case at all. Goddamn, Mapfan would be perfect if it just let you search for whatever you want in an area, typing the area name afterwards did help significantly but it's still a questionable substitute. It is also odd how Mapfan doesn't do public transit when the route directions have a section for fares. Ah well, combine that with something like Ekispert and you can make do. Google Map really was so perfect at combining everything and helping you find stuff. I've found the Google Map shortcut thing to be too clunky to use in most situations, and if you're in a busy area it'll take awhile to load and keep refreshing. Oddly enough, the Navitime Bicycle app has a really good area search where you set a radius and search terms, I've used that several times to success. It also doesn't have a subscription fee like the normal Navitime app, unless you want to do stat-tracking and other features which I've never desired.
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Oct 1, 2012 03:15
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Mapfan+ is now out, figures it'd come out shortly after I bought the main version. The map themselves are updated and seem to have the ability to update themselves, you can choose between online and offline modes. Offline maps are apparently going to cost money, but there's a free campaign going on right now so if you want them you'd better download them while you can. There's also a subscription service which seems geared towards drivers, giving you traffic and parking information, nothing I see as necessary. The app now has a proper nearby search tool, so you can finally search for specific things in your area. Oddly enough there are a few features from the old Mapfan which are missing here. The local search only has a few very generic options if you don't want to find something specific (shopping, restaurant, hotels, etc.), whereas the old app had lots of search options. The TV spot guide is also gone, which is kind of a shame since I did make use of it quite a bit. Maybe I'll keep both of them for now but I'll probably end up deleting the old version since I could use that 2gb of space back.
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Nov 24, 2012 12:46
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Woah, you wasted your contract on a 2.2 phone which can upgrade as high as 2.3? I'd think you would have bigger regrets about buying a phone which is forced to use an outdated version of the OS...
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Jan 13, 2013 11:59
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NeilPerry posted:I'm going to stay in Japan for a year. Should I get a decent smartphone here and do all that sim card poo poo(cutting them out of a cheap cell and inserting it into the smartphone that I brought) someone described to me in this thread some months ago, or should I just get a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 or iPod Touch and use Wi-Fi(and possibly supplement with a cheap rear end phone)? The latter seems cheaper if done in Japan, the former is a lot cheaper if I buy one here and bring it along. If you do the iPod Touch thing, you can get Wimax or some wifi router and install Line through that, and use Line for free calling. You won't have a physical phone number, but I'm not sure it's as important these days unless you need a contact number for job purposes or something.
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Jul 22, 2013 14:37
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Anyone getting the Docomo iPhone? I stopped by today since I plan to switch from AU. I was never impressed by AU's coverage in areas like Ikebukuro, but checking out the testing phones near the station was fast enough. No unlocks on the Docomo iPhone, which seems like BS since they were bragging about how you can unlock any phone with them. No push support for their mail either, although they told me it'd be coming next month. I guess I'll wait until then anyway since my AU contract ends next month.
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Sep 21, 2013 12:24
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http://www.japanmobiletech.com/2013/09/mvnos-appear-locked-out-of-docomo.html Man, screw Docomo. First they go back on their promises of unlocking every phone, and now this poo poo? Along with their previous attitudes about the iPhone, I feel like I shouldn't be giving my business to such a hard-headed company. Anyway, I found this site which compares signal strength along the Yamanote: http://japanese.engadget.com/2013/09/24/iphone-5s-3-au/ Looks like AU is the overall victor in terms of LTE, including the Ikebukuro area so I guess I'll stay with them. Even the areas where the other carriers are better have an acceptable speed for AU, and places like Shinjuku there's a pretty big gap between them and something like Softbank. They gave me a 15000yen coupon to stay and upgrade, which doesn't really factor into my decision but it'll be nice either way. My main concern is whether or not you actually get LTE coverage in Ikebukuro station itself, I remember my friends with the iPhone5 complaining about how many areas would drop down to 3G, but this is when it first came out so it's possible that the network coverage has gotten much better within the year. I'll try and borrow their phones in the next few days, if the area around the station is stable enough, I'll upgrade this weekend. Original_Z fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 02:33
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zmcnulty posted:If at all possible, wait until May 1st, since handsets sold after this date will be subject to new regulations requiring carriers to unlock the phone if requested. The law won't apply to phones sold before this date. This Rakuten Mobile thing looks pretty good, I'm pissed that the big carriers are going the limited data plan route these days and was looking at b-mobile which is around 3000yen for unlimited data, but 10GB from Rakuten would also probably be enough. I'd probably just buy an unlocked iPhone 6 plus from Apple in September and use a sim from one of those. Is there any kind of data for speeds or other statistics on b-mobile vs. Rakuten?
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Apr 2, 2015 14:03
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