Low price phone to use in Japan?

D

dreamwoman

New member
I'm looking for a fairly low price 3G phone I could use in Japan for short visits. (I want to keep my cell phone no. so don't want to rent). The lowest prices I've seen on ebay etc. so far seem to be for the Motorola C975 and V980 and the Sony Ericsson V600i.

What do people think of these phones for this purpose? Are there other UTMS phones I should be thinking about?

The reviews for the C975 seem to be quite bad so I'm thinking of excluding that. Some of the review for the V980 suggest it has a poor battery life so maybe I should drop that too? Everything else being equal I'd prefer a clamshell.

Thanks!
 
I've used the C975, and the V975 which is the Hutchinson branded equivalent of the V980 and also the Sony Ericsson V800 which are the closest phones to the list you give.

You are correct in believing that these are pretty cheap phones.

The C975 is extremely bad I'll agree. The only thing it has going for it (apart from W-CDMA 3G frequency which you'll need in Japan) is the transflash memory card. The phone is big and bulky. The only connectivity option to the PC is a cable which is pretty retarded. While I'm at it, you can stay away from the A835 as well. I've owned two A835's and sold them both pretty quick. The A835 is slightly better because it has bluetooth and infrared, but lacks the transflash card slot. The firmware is also pretty bad, it's slow, and also, there are some versions of firmware that don't allow for mp3 ringtones, although this could be flashed to the Austrian 3 firmware. The C975 also has a slow firmware.

The V975 (3 branded) and V980 (Vodafone branded) are fairly decent phones, ok so they lack the odd thing, like the V975 lacks bluetooth I know, not sure about the other. But they are more stylish than the C975 and the A835. The antenna is also cusomisable and it uses the same antennas as the V600/V635/etc.... i think so you can change that. Firmware is average. I had a dodgy V975, not sure if it was a dodgy unlock or what....... They are better than the previoous phones though.

Sony Ericsson V600i (Vodafone branded), K600i (generic version) and K608i (3 branded) are defiantely the best choice. Sony Ericsson's firmware are solid, and although if you need a firmware flash, it costs, they are definately worth it, pretty solid phones, I'd recommend this even if it costs more than the Motorolas.

Another phone you could look at is the Sony Ericsson V800/V802SE/Z800i (the V800 is cheapest of them all), it's a flipphone and still a fairly decent phone.
 
Thanks very much for the comments and suggestions.

Right now I'm thinking about getting a Motorola E770 as it seems to cost only slightly more than the V980, but appears to be a bit better in some ways (even though it's not a flip phone): lighter, longer battery life (hopefully), bluetooth, more memory.
 
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