N4 Europe Experience

[lmvine]

Took my 6 week old N4 to Europe. Used for calls, GPS navigation and wifi. No data. It performed to my expectations in UK, France, Spain & Portugal.
I used OSMAnd+ for navigation on 2 occasions where I rented a car and she kept us on track.
I used Toggle mobile and bought a SIM card here preloaded UK Prepaid Toggle Sim Card Europe Free Incoming GBP5 Voucher SHIP from USA | eBay
Very inexpensive to call & even called US from UK to use up some of the prepaid funds.

Free Wifi not quite as prevalent as US but available. I had better cell signal strength in Europe than I do in US.

Still learning the N4 but have N7 so transition was OK.

 

[cpolism]

I was just going to post about something like this. We are heading to Italy next month for a couple weeks, and I've been researching what to do. It seems the easiest thing to do (including data) is to purchase a prepaid SIM from Vodofone or other reliable carrier and just use it until it runs out. Seems for $50 or so, you get a good amount of data with text/voice. Is it better to purchase these SIMs here before we leave? Or wait until we get there?

 

[N4Newbie]

I was just going to post about something like this. We are heading to Italy next month for a couple weeks, and I've been researching what to do. It seems the easiest thing to do (including data) is to purchase a prepaid SIM from Vodofone or other reliable carrier and just use it until it runs out. Seems for $50 or so, you get a good amount of data with text/voice. Is it better to purchase these SIMs here before we leave? Or wait until we get there?

I bought a prepaid sim card at the TIM shop in the underground mall below Florence's Santa Maria Novella railroad station (it's the main train station in Florence). It was like 20euro and came with 10euro talk/text credit plus unlimited data for 30 days or something like that. I later topped off with another 10euro card. Worked fine.

If you are visiting a major city, I would wait and buy the SIM card there. Assuming you are not fluent in Italian, you will need to find a shop where you can get assistance in English; in and around train stations of major cities are good locations as well as airports.

 

[mr_nobody]

I used OSMAnd+ for navigation on 2 occasions where I rented a car and she kept us on track.

Unclear to me what the difference between the free version and osmand+ is?

 

[lmvine]

Unclear to me what the difference between the free version and osmand+ is?

Free version allows 10 map downloads, pay version unlimited.

I tried the free version on a ~400 mile trip in this country before I sprung for the pay version. Actually did better than my Garmin.

 

[lmvine]

Is it better to purchase these SIMs here before we leave? Or wait until we get there?

Depends on situation. I needed to be able to communicate with the taxi company when we arrived so my need was for immediate com. I also went to 4 countries and rather than buy new SIMs for each, I chose one SIM that would get me low rates in each country.