Best unlocked android phone?

[themaclady]

Which is the best unlocked phone to get now? l travel to europe several times a year and l would like a phone I can just buy a sim card for. Can you buy a temp sim card for both talk and data in most european countries?
Thanks in advance.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[jdbower]

What carrier are you on? Ages ago I was on T-Mobile before Verizon had World Phones, their policy was that they'd unlock your phone if your account met certain criteria (you've been a customer for the past 1 or 2 years, account paid in full, etc.).

And yes, from a GSM perspective an unlocked phone means you can buy a pre-paid SIM and these are available throughout Europe. I've done this with Swisscom and the data gets deducted from the card on a per kB basis while voice calls are per minute. The nice thing is that incoming calls are frequently free, so if your friends are willing to dial an international number (even using something like Skype) it doesn't count against your minutes.

 

[themaclady]

I will get a new number for this phone but I want to buy an unlocked phone for this. I just got a Droid X so that isn't going to work in Europe so I thought that would be a good idea and I could use google voice to screen my calls going to the Droid X.

 

[jdbower]

I really wish Verizon made Android World Phones - I don't even care if they're unlocked because they've got great International plans. Alas, hopefully the LTE Android phones will fit the bill...

My personal preference if I was going to spend that kind of money on a phone would be to try to find a Nexus One - they're pretty much designed to be hacked and I wouldn't mind if I had a buggy experience on a secondary phone like that. While you can't get them from Google, there are plenty of people willing to part with them online. Barring that I would probably look at a Samsung Galaxy for the screen or HTC Desire for the loose security around the bootloader. You may be able to pick one up wherever you're headed as a nice souvenir - but you'll want to check pricing first since VAT may be a killer.