- Hi, I'm Parris,
and traveling with a cell phone
is always a little bit worrying,
both with whether your phone is going to work
in the country that you're visiting,
and how much they're going to charge you
for that privilege.
I remember a few years ago,
landing in Mexico,
and we immediately,
when we started our phones,
turned the data off,
but it had already racked up about
$25 in charges,
just in the first two minutes,
of getting updates, and the news,
and the weather,
and loading that into our phone
through the roaming network.
So, how can you continue to have
the convenience of having your own cell phone,
but not have to worry about those issues?
Well, there's a company that offers
an interesting approach to this.
They are called ChatSim,
and they have sent me,
to try out
a SIM card,
to put into my phone,
which will get me on their network,
and the plan they offer
is as much text chatting
as you want for $10 a month.
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I haven't opened this up yet,
but I think this has SIM card,
with an adapter to fit all
the possible sizes,
nano, micro, standard SIM cards.
You install this SIM card into your phone,
and you go to their website to
finish setting up your account,
and then you can take your phone,
travel to, something on the order
of 140 different countries around the world,
and you will be automatically connected
to the local cell phone service network,
and you can use your chat applications,
like WhatsApp or the Facebook messenger for texting,
not for the photos and the multimedia,
unless you want to pay extra,
but just for basic texting and emjois,
as much as you like,
while you're traveling.
If you're already thinking,
this is exactly what you need,
I'll put a link to their website,
right down below this video,
and the company is called ChatSim,
because it's the SIM card,
that lets you chat with your phone,
and a lot of people now,
they rarely use the phone to make calls,
even to do regular text messaging.
I know a number of people,
who it's all about the chatting apps,
and so that's what this gives you access to.
Inside of here,
is,
yes,
it's a
full size SIM card,
with a punch out for the smaller
SIM card, it looks like.
It would be nice if they included one of these,
a little cell phone tray popper,
because it's hard to find something that fits
in these just right,
but I had to grab the one came with my phone,
which I kept in the box.
Looks like the micro SIM card is the size that I use.
Very faintly on here,
I can see the punch out for that size,
so you just keep punching it out,
until you have the right size SIM card
to put into your tray.
Okay, think I've got the right size here.
I've put the new SIM card in the tray.
Slide all of that back into here,
and turn on the phone.
As the phone starts up,
I'm going to their website,
and there's a code number,
a couple of them on the bottom of the phone,
I'll need to enter to activate my account.
After entering the card information,
I fill out my personal profile,
which is okay, except that,
they want my cell phone number,
which I don't quite understand,
because I've obviously just took
the SIM card out to put theirs in.
I'm guessing it's so they can text you stuff,
and they want an identity document,
like a drivers license,
or passport,
they want you to scan that,
and then upload that file to them.
Now, I was trying to remember,
since I have T-Mobile,
for cell phone service,
if when I originally setup the account,
if they wanted something like that,
and I don't remember, honestly,
but this is cell phone service,
of a sort, you are going to be given a number,
and you are going to be on a cell phone, worldwide network,
so maybe this, maybe they do always ask for this,
I don't recall that,
and you can use this SIM card to make calls,
if you're willing to pay more for that sort of thing.
Okay, so I've accepted all of this,
I'm going on to next.
My account is now setup,
the phone is now asking me to put in a PIN,
which might be the one on the back of this card,
so we'll see what network I get on with that.
There are instructions here for how to
set your phone to do the data roaming,
so when you travel to the other countries,
your phone will grab onto those networks,
and identify itself,
and still be able to access your chat programs.
Not quite sure what's going on here.
I can't seem to enter a PIN that will work.
The phone is still on Wi-Fi,
so the programs are loading,
and updating,
and all that's actually working fine,
but I don't know how to get past this screen.
Okay, did some research online,
figured out that that message is actually from T-Mobile.
I need to enter a code from T-Mobile
to unlock this phone.
This is just a general purpose,
ZTE Zmax phone,
but I bought it from T-Mobile,
so it's a network phone,
as far as T-Mobile is concerned.
I would need to go to them,
and request a code to unlock it,
so I can use it with another carrier.
Well, I have another phone
that is actually a non-carrier specific phone,
I'll try it with that.
Okay, I'm back with my primary phone,
which is the Google Nexus 6P.
New model,
and ordered it directly from Google.
So, it should be unlocked,
however I think the SIM card is a different size.
Yeah, that's a nano, so,
I will now have to punch out the little
surrounding area from this micro,
to turn it into a nano.
Looks like it's letting me right through on this phone,
so this one is properly unlocked,
and it's also on Wi-Fi,
so it will update everything first of all,
then I'll turn the data off,
and try to get on to the network for ChatSim.
However, before I turn off my Wi-Fi,
I probably better download and install
the WhatsApp app since I have have neither that,
nor Facebook messenger on this phone.
I see WhatsApp requires knowing my cell phone number.
Okay.
Right, now I can't get the text verification
from WhatsApp because I have the other SIM card in here.
So, it took some more SIM card switching,
but I finally got WhatsApp installed,
and verified,
and working on the phone.
I've tried it out with Wi-Fi,
and it worked in Wi-Fi.
Now, I've turned Wi-Fi off,
so I've got a little R symbol for roaming.
I don't know if I'm actually on the T-Mobile network,
but since I'm connected via ChatSim,
maybe that's what I'm roaming on,
but some network here in Austin.
So, I've tried out the apps like Instagram,
tried to get updates,
can't refresh feed.
They will block the data if you have just the
basic plan for your other apps,
so pretty much only those chat apps will work.
I tried Twitter,
cannot retrieve activity at this time.
So, it's the apps they mentioned on their website,
that's what it's supposed to work with.
Let's see if something will work.
I'm going to open WhatsApp.
Okay, I'm going to try a message.
Hello.
Sending this to my daughter,
see if she'll reply,
see if this will work over the network.
She said she'll be watching her phone.
They looked like they're sending,
they have a time code next to them.
Well, it turns out I had to go into the settings,
and create a new APN,
with certain perimeters,
so it would work on the network,
and apparently now it does,
because the messages I sent,
and the ones she sent to me zoomed right through
as soon as I made those changes,
so I'm going to try texting again.
Hello.
Yeah, that went,
and it turned right into a check mark.
So, she should have received that.
(phone ding alert)
Oh, hey,
so that's the sound, apparently,
that WhatsApp makes when you receive
an incoming text.
So, we are not able to text each other,
in the WhatsApp app,
via the ChatSim connection,
to the phone network wherever we are,
and it should work like this
in 140 different countries,
all around the world.
So, it works.
I wish I had international travel plans,
so I could give you the follow up
on how it works in other countries,
but for now I can tell you it does work here.
It took some work to get this up and running,
but now it is.
The messages come and go.
I assume they would work
just as well in Facebook messenger,
and the other apps that they list on their website.
Pretty good deal for $10 a month,
if you're a big user of those chat programs,
and that's how you keep in touch with family and friends,
this might be the way to go.
You can use your phone with this SIM card
for making calls and receiving regular texts,
for an additional cost.
It's sort of like a prepay plan,
you buy so many credits,
and they get used up
based on the minutes you talk on the phone.
Also, you can do the same thing,
you can pay in advance,
and get credits that will allow you
to send photos in the chat applications,
photos,
videos,
that sort of thing.
If you think ChatSim might be for you,
I'll put a link to it down below this video.
You can keep checking back for future videos,
or you can click subscribe button down below,
you'll get notified when our videos go up.
See you on the next review.
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