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Visiting USA
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on 16-04-2019 22:44
I will be visiting the USA for a month shortly (mostly around Oakland, CA) and am wondering which phone to use. I have a Motorola Moto E4 and a Moto G4. The E4 is a US model and the G4 is a UK model. As far as I understand it, the E4 does receive 4G but the G4, because it is British, doesn't work on the US 4G bands.
I am primarily interested in speech and text (only to US numbers), possibly some web browsing but not streaming music or video.
Probably using the T-Mobile network (or Metro, which runs over T-Mobile). 3G would satisfy me, but I am wondering if there are likely to be any issues with it.
The G4 is obviously the better phone if it works well enough, and I have used it a fair bit more. Neither is my main phone nowadays; that is an iPhone 7, but if I take it I will have it entirely on airplane mode for use of wifi, rather than swapping out the SIM during my visit.
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Re: Visiting USA
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on 16-04-2019 22:57
If you are travelling to the US and you have a US phone, then that's the one I would be using. If it's unlocked you could use a local sim from AT&T or T Mobile
We have found from others posting, that UK (O2) phones don't work particularly well in the US. Speeds are slow and it's quite expensive.
One of our members @Bambino lives in the US so I will mention him and hope he can give further advice when he is back online.
Either way, use WiFi wherever possible to keep costs down.
Re: Visiting USA
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on 16-04-2019 22:58
@danco You're probably better off using the US model phone. You can check compatibility here: https://willmyphonework.net/
Re: Visiting USA
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on 18-04-2019 17:01
Good luck with your travels @danco ! Let us know if there's anything else the community could help you with or if you're all good to go!
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Re: Visiting USA
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on 18-04-2019 17:49
Yes, I was already inclined to feel my E4 (US model) would be the better choice. It only runs Android 5, while the UK G4 runs Android7, but for my use I don't think that matters much.
Re: Visiting USA
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on 20-04-2019 14:52
Another consideration is using Skype on the WiFi only iphone. Sign up for the free month unlimited calls and use that when poss. It's what I use in the states for USA numbers especially.
( although both my EE Max and O2 sims allow USA roaming)