expeditionswest said:
Most carriers have a world phone solution.
For me, the decision is easy. iPhone with the "wold traveler" package. I can talk from Mexico City to Marrakech. The coverage with ATT continues to improve, nearly daily.
The phone is also highly effective on the moto, as it has dozens of apps that are useful on a bike, like autorouting, a flashlight, a camera, bluetooth to the helmet for music and phone, etc.
My life would be much more tethered to an office without that cool little device.
But it is not perfect. Coverage is less than Verizon in remote areas and the battery life is just barely acceptable. There is no real tether option.
Because the iPhone is on ATT, I also have a Verizon aircard. I can nearly always communicate on one or the other.
If you jailbreak your iPhone you can tether it to a laptop. There's really no way that AT&T would know other than if you bang against that 'Unlimited' 5GB data limit. It's AT&T that doesn't want you tethering your phone, Apple could probably care less. But it's in your contract, the AT&T iPhone data plan does not allow tethering.
I think an iPhone with a region specific SIM makes a great
traveling phone, but the reason I don't think the iPhone is an acceptable
overlanding (or backcountry traveling) cell phone is that you can't attach an external antenna. That is a major mistake IMHO on Apple's part. Particularly with the 3G iPhone, having A-GPS and ability to actively track you with InstaMapper point to a phone that isn't just for the city and the way they had to squeeze antennas in is just marginal. The phone uses the trim ring around the face and camera as antennas, for example.
So far the only complaint with AT&T is that I think they were really surprised with the iPhone ramp up and their infrastructure is strained a lot because of it. I've had times when sitting with solid 3G coverage that it's barely faster than EDGE. Lunch time over in DTC (a big office park complex near where I work), for example.
BTW, I've been getting good battery life from mine lately for some reason. It'll hold a standby charge for a couple of days before the battery falls from full and with normal usage, email checks, a few calls a day, etc., I only need to charge every other day or 3. Even then, the battery is only down to ~35%. I think what made the biggest difference was turning off 3G during the day. Another option is to turn off Location Services if you're not using them. I think the assisted GPS engine on the iPhone is not good at power savings on 3G unless it has good strong signals. If you are on the fringe of one or more cells it's trying to use for location, then it just rails the power. I noticed my phone getting warm just sitting on my desk here, so I think one of the cells isn't close. With EDGE only the accuracy goes down, but it'll only pick the strongest cell. So it's a trade-off. If I turn on Wi-Fi and 3G, then let it locate outside with GPS, the accuracy is very close, under 29 feet. I think the phone then caches information based on Wi-Fi points. Because if after that I turn off 3G the location remains very close, around 55 feet accuracy. If I then also turn off Wi-Fi, the accuracy goes in the hopper, to about 1km with EDGE only, which is obviously the strongest cell it's getting. So with only EDGE and Wi-Fi I get good accuracy of places I've been and when I go outside and start moving, it seems to pick up it's location from the satellites, too. So unless I'm actually accessing the web, I generally leave 3G off, I find EDGE acceptable for just email and other low bandwidth stuff (I sometimes run InstaMapper just so my wife can watch my commute home).
) and getting the updated one on CDMA. With external antennas, your coverage will be greatly increased.
