Droid Pro experiences traveling about the world

[nanohead]

Well, I finally had the opportunity (if you can call it that ) to use the Pro outside the US. Spent the week traveling about the UK and EU, so I now have an opinion as to how it performs.

First of all, the battery usage when running on pure GSM is AWFUL. At home with the regular battery, and only the CDMA radio on (No gps, no bluetooth or any other radios), I can usually get an entire day with no problem.

With GSM only, I got barely 6 hours every day over 7 days. It was awful. I had a dead battery all the time. I finally bought the extended battery when I got back home.......

Voice mail was flaky for sure. I despise voice mail in general, but when I touched down at JFK, like 20 of them appeared. This may be a broader flakiness of verizon VM notifications not making through the networks in europe, .... who knows.

Exchange was fine, although my personal IMAP mail was flaky. There were a bunch missing from my personal IMAP account.

Texting was fine (as you would expect)

Voice was terrific, clear and crisp. Can't wait to get my $5000 bill from VZW for the calls :icon_ banana:

I was gonna get a cheapo SIM card, but was so busy in meetings, airports and trains, that I never got to pick one up.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with it. Next time, I'll have the extended battery, and may in fact get a second one. My big take away was that it is a really good global phone (as far as Verizon goes at least) and worked pretty well. Also, that GSM only simply DRINKS battery power.

 

[bsweetness]

I used my Pro for several weeks in China about a month ago with a Chinese SIM card. I refuse to pay the ridiculous international roaming charges that Verizon has, and picking up a SIM and popping it in was just about the simplest thing in world. Extremely cheap too. I had a very different experience regarding the battery life though. I already had the extended battery, and I found it to be greatly improved in the GSM only mode. I was out and about all day every day, and I was constantly using my phone to communicate with friends via text/call, using GPS for directions, and checking email and such online. I was greatly impressed by the battery life. It never died on me once, and I was out for 14-18 hours a day. It lasted noticeably longer than it does back home in the states. Emails/texts/calls/voicemails all came through perfectly fine for me. I didn't have a single issue while there, and that impressed me tremendously.

I found it to indeed be a very good global phone. Almost better internationally than it is at home.

 

[nanohead]

You're smart, I think I was lazy about the SIM card. I agree that it was pretty good on the road. I really liked it. Weird about the battery, I made sure that everything but the main radio was off and all sorts of other polling processes were shut down. Maybe I did something wrong that caused it to eat battery power.

I imagine that my experience with the extended battery should be similar to yours when I go back in a few weeks.

I'm still looking for a SIM card that has a US number though, without some crazy dialing scheme (I already have one of those). I don't mind the non US number while in EU or Asia, but it then become stupid expensive for people to call me from the US. I guess there's no easy way out of it ultimately....

I did try Skype, but then you get hammered with international Data rates. And I did use Skype with wifi in germany, but then it drank my battery!!!

I guess there's no free lunch

 

[mich2000]

Using sroid pro in the UK

I use Droid Pro in the UK. The phone works reasonable well with great app support most apps are designed to use Android 2.2. There are some problems, the main one is the constant crashing whjen using UMTS/HSDPA. Also making calls while in the 3g mode can crash the phone. Battery life is pretty good in the UK probably because of the many masts. I can easily make it through the day without charging the phone, but I don't make that many calls per day.

 

[paradime313]

Hey all,

I'm glad this post was made. I'm going to Europe in 2 months. It's for pleasure and only for a week, so I don't even think I really need my phone... BUT I thought I might at least explore the option.

So what do I need to do to use the phone abroad? Do I need to change any settings, talk to Verizon, etc? Also, what is the sim card deal?

Thanks for any input.

 

[tennvol]

Call in europe has a europe sim with a us number. Its much more expensive than most other means though. I don't work for them and please due your research if you sign up with them. I have used them in the past with great success.

Of course nothing beats a Mobile Uk payg sim for dirt cheap data and voice

Btw I had the opposite experience with my battery life. I spent most of the time roaming on Orange and the other time on Mobile 4g and my extended battery lasted 12 hours where here on cdma only I get maybe 6 hours

Sent from my DROID PRO using DroidForums

 

[bsweetness]

Hey all,

I'm glad this post was made. I'm going to Europe in 2 months. It's for pleasure and only for a week, so I don't even think I really need my phone... BUT I thought I might at least explore the option.

So what do I need to do to use the phone abroad? Do I need to change any settings, talk to Verizon, etc? Also, what is the sim card deal?

Thanks for any input.

You can take your phone as is and use it in Europe without doing much of anything besides activating international roaming on your account (which is free to turn on). Verizon will charge you outrageous international roaming fees though. If you want to have your phone with you to use, the most affordable options is to unlock the the phone to be able to use any SIM card (if you've been a Verizon customer for more than 90 days and have an account in good standing, they'll give you the code to do this for free). You can then purchase a local SIM card from the country you're in that will allow you to call/text/use data (depending on the plan that comes with the SIM card) for far less than what Verizon would charge you to roam using their SIM card that's already in there.

 

[paradime313]

Hey all,

I'm glad this post was made. I'm going to Europe in 2 months. It's for pleasure and only for a week, so I don't even think I really need my phone... BUT I thought I might at least explore the option.

So what do I need to do to use the phone abroad? Do I need to change any settings, talk to Verizon, etc? Also, what is the sim card deal?

Thanks for any input.

You can take your phone as is and use it in Europe without doing much of anything besides activating international roaming on your account (which is free to turn on). Verizon will charge you outrageous international roaming fees though. If you want to have your phone with you to use, the most affordable options is to unlock the the phone to be able to use any SIM card (if you've been a Verizon customer for more than 90 days and have an account in good standing, they'll give you the code to do this for free). You can then purchase a local SIM card from the country you're in that will allow you to call/text/use data (depending on the plan that comes with the SIM card) for far less than what Verizon would charge you to roam using their SIM card that's already in there.

Fantastic, I may do this just to try it out for if I ever really need it someday. Thanks for the info.

 

[lulugirl896]

I took mine on my trip to London earlier this year, got it unlocked and picked up a prepaid Lyca Mobile sim card. No data, but texts and calls. It was such a pleasure to not have to key in my phone numbers into a cheapie phone. I used my DP to take photos and then was able to use wifi each evening to upload my photos to Flickr. Battery life was ok.
All you need to do is call Verizon and tell them what country you are in- they will give you a toll-free number to call from there and then call from there with a local sim card in your phone and they will unlock it within minutes.

 

[bsweetness]

I took mine on my trip to London earlier this year, got it unlocked and picked up a prepaid Lyca Mobile sim card. No data, but texts and calls. It was such a pleasure to not have to key in my phone numbers into a cheapie phone. I used my DP to take photos and then was able to use wifi each evening to upload my photos to Flickr. Battery life was ok.
All you need to do is call Verizon and tell them what country you are in- they will give you a toll-free number to call from there and then call from there with a local sim card in your phone and they will unlock it within minutes.

You can actually call and get the unlock code before you leave the U.S. You do have to already have another SIM card though, and you have to put it in the phone to be able to type in the unlock code. Any SIM card should will work for that, regardless of where it's from, since there is just a single unlock code per device that isn't dependent upon what country the SIM card you're going to use is from.

I unlocked mine about a month before I took the Pro internationally for the first time. I wanted to make sure everything was in order without any problems before I got where I was going.

 

[bjwheeler]

Great info everyone! Thanks for having this discussion. Like the others I'm heading to London for a week in two months. I'll be sure to weigh all options discussed.

Sent from my DROID PRO using DroidForums

 

[google123]

I called Verizon today to get an unlock code for mine so I can use a local SIM card when I go to Mexico this summer and they flat out refused to give me one. Stated that I can use their network and just roam while I'm down there.........:censored:

 

[bjwheeler]

Hmmm. Strange. I will call soon and see what they tell me. Have you been a customer in good standing for more than 90 days, like the previous poster mentioned?

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[google123]

I've been a customer with them for well over 5 years.

 

[bsweetness]

I've been a customer with them for well over 5 years.

Call back and talk to a different person. It's company policy to give out the unlock code if you meet the qualifications. I've never had a problem with the five different world phones I've had over the years. If another rep refuses, ask to talk to his/her supervisor.

They'll also only give out one unlock code to a customer every six months or every year. I can't remember which. But they do have a limit on how many phones they'll give you the codes for in a certain time frame.