X-Post - Suitable phone for long term travel to Africa/India

[David]

A friend may be off in a few months to two separate locations (work related) and is likely to be spending around 3 months in each location.

Requirements are:

(1) Smart phone

(2) Work in Africa (Ghana) and India

(3) Repair/replacement cover in case of damage

Someone has told him that iPhones are the best for India, but I am sceptical.

For compatibility, I found:

which suggests that dual band would be fine but quad band might be an investment in the future.

My thoughts are:

(1) Buy an unlocked phone then PAYG - especially as the phone is going to be out of the country using other SIM cards for about half the year.

(2) Buy something waterproof, if possible shock proof.

(3) Buy something which can take an SD card to expand memory.

(4) Buy something with an exchangeable battery so spares can be carried. Power banks are O.K. but spare batteries are much lighter.

(5) Take out insurance so the phone can be repaired or replaced in country. I assume any repair cover from a UK supplier bundled with a contract will require returning the handset to the UK, but I could be wrong.

What does the team think? This does seem to comprehensively rule out an iPhone.

Cheers

Dave R

[Adrian Caspersz]

Nah, too much reliance on charging batteries and needing data service. A magnet for theft, and being stupidly judged for ya choice of fashion.

Just get an almost dumb previous generation multimedia phone. Small, cheap, easily available unlocked. Rugged versions available with storage, email and good cameras.

iPhones probably were recommended as given their market volume, they are a standard when networks were planning coverage and standards of data service. Some years back, Blackberry probably had that standing.

[Woody]

Pretty well any Huawei phone will suit the need. All are quad band, some have 4G, all will take a micro SD card, and all (I think) have a user replaceable battery.

The only issue is that Google in their wisdom will not allow back up of the phone onto the SD card so you can have a copy if it is stolen - they cite security as an issue, but that applies to all Android phones anyway.

[Theo]

[snip]

Those things are meaningless these days, when you have UMTS and LTE to consider. This indicates what bands are used:

While this has bands per operator:

It's probably OK to get a phone that doesn't cover every LTE band, because it isn't the end of the world not to have LTE.

Dust proof might be something to consider. (dust and water are not equivalent - dust can scratch for example)

Not sure that's relevant to the criteria - unless you're talking about pulling data off a dead phone.

Yes, and perhaps an external charger so can charge multiple at once. Depends how patchy the electricity supply is likely to be.

Or a cheap phone where they can just buy another. There are some affordable Android handsets available locally, so having something to get them started and then buy a local phone if needs be. Though I wouldn't use them for anything particularly security critical.

Unless you're prepared to go used, maybe.

You haven't told us the environment - are we talking working in an embassy or working in a rural village? It rather makes a difference.

I'd suggest something inconspicuous. If it's recognisably the latest shiny, it's more likely to be stolen or attract unwanted attention. If it's a battered anonymous lump, it's probably not going to.

Theo

[David]

Thanks.

SD card to, for example, hold Here maps for use off line (and even a music collection). I normally store phone photos on the SD card as well.

Location to be confirmed, but some time in towns and some time in rural locations is likely.

There is a conflict in the requirements, in that some of the most useful features might be things like mapping aided by GPS but a new smart phone may be attractive to thieves.

My point about the iPhone was that I don't think it offers expandable storage or exchangeable batteries. Granted that you can pay for extra memory internally at quite a high price per GB.

iPhone 6 seems to be "almost waterproof". Galaxy S5 is waterproof but S6 is not.

Obviously not an easy one.

Cheers

Dave R

[Rob Morley]

How about two or three of the same cheap Chinese phone (that's your spare replaceable batteries sorted) and a couple of those zip-up PVC waterproof bags on a string? And a BlueTooth headset or two. No need to insure them as they're pretty much disposable, unlikely that they'll all fail or get nicked (who wants a no-name Chinese phone anyway?). They seem to come with dual-SIM, quad-band, SD slot as standard, for £40-60 a pop. Whatever he goes for, a solar charging USB power bank might be useful.

[Woody]

Didn't I see recently that there is now a smartphone available in India for something like ?20?

[RJH]

snip

A decent screen and processor helps GPS along - a lot. I changed from an iPhone 4S to a 6 two years ago and responsiveness improved no end.

Indeed. 64GB does it for me, but it is pricey. Backups go to iCloud, and for extra battery I have a couple of those USB packs.

£500 is a lot to pay for a phone - but it works for me, and I'm not that well off. If money was tighter, I'd go for a used 5S. If money was tight, I wouldn't bother ;-)

On insurance, I use my Nationwide current account package - which includes holiday insurance and car breakdown cover for £10/m - so it more or less pays for itself. A catch is that they don't replace with new, and there's quite a hefty excess (£75 IIRC).

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 08:16:33 on Tue, 16 Aug

2016, RJH remarked:

Look at the small print. In common with most holiday insurance (often misleadingly called "travel insurance") there might be time limits on your stay and a prohibition on doing any paid work while away.

[David]

Read in (I think) the Register that there is a 12% import duty on all smart phones so Samsung and Apple are planning to build factories in country.

Further discussions required.

One plan seems to be a reasonable smart phone for UK use and possibly city use abroad, and one or more "burner" phones for rural travel.

I keep reading that in India especially you need dual SIM.

Is that because one carrier does a good deal for voice, and another for data?

Cheers

Dave R

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 13:16:55 on Tue, 16 Aug 2016, David remarked:

Especially as India could suddenly decide to put a 20% duty on all the major components used in a Smartphone, so you'd end up having to move your entire supply chain (fabs and all) to India.

[Jock]

No, because many of the low cost carriers have free calls when the call is to another customer of the same carrier. When you have a number of carriers doing that, you don?t see everyone using the same carrier, so you need more than one SIM to maximise the number of free calls you can make.

[David]

Thanks.

Makes sense.

Cheers

Dave R