I am using https://www.dent-app.com/ for travelling and never going back. I would also use eSIM for the main SIM, but the local monopolist telecom do not give this option yet.
Dent looks really cool thanks for sharing!
Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
11–20 of 76 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#12super great as secondary sim (I mean internet)
I experienced some, but to me https://etravelsim.com/ is good choice (europe and balcans)
support impressive (super responsive) plus you get a uk number, free calls to other their esim... just discovered this e-sim world thanks to HN: it is the future
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#13eSIM is amazing for purchasing roaming internet while traveling. There is a eSIM aggregator that I can recommend: https://esimdb.com/
exacly!!! super reccomended
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#14I've tried travel eSIMs (Ubigi) on a couple of trips to Japan. In my experience compared to when I've gone and used physical SIMs, the reception and coverage wasn't nearly as good. Just super random neighborhoods and areas where the phone just completely drops connections. Even the top of a mountain near Fuji, my eSIM failed completely but my Japanese friends with eSIMs had completely normal and fast service despite supposedly being connected to the same network (DoCoMo iirc at the time).
Not sure if it's an eSIM issue or that the service (Ubigi in this case) that fronts the cellular network just can't operate it smoothly or what.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#15Works great on iOS but can be a bit fidgety. I bought a data-only eSIM for Switzerland and as I crossed the French/Swiss border I had to go deep into the settings menu to enable the eSIM, set it as the data primary and keep using my primary SIM for phone calls and FaceTime, but then also disable data roaming on my primary SIM as to not accidentally occur charges in case reception of the eSIM fails. And disable roaming on the eSIM so I wouldn't occur extra cost if it connected to the French network, as I was close to the border. When going back to France I would disable the eSIM, set the data primary back on my primary SIM and enable data roaming on that SIM (after waiting for it to connect to the French network).
It would be nice if there was a more hands-off approach when crossing a border, or some sort of "do whatever is going to cost me the least amount of money" approach to roaming and having two SIMs.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#16I've tried travel eSIMs (Ubigi) on a couple of trips to Japan. In my experience compared to when I've gone and used physical SIMs, the reception and coverage wasn't nearly as good. Just super random neighborhoods and areas where the phone just completely drops connections. Even the top of a mountain near Fuji, my eSIM failed completely but my Japanese friends with eSIMs had completely normal and fast service despite…
I can say for certain of course, but I would guess at that being the result of the poor service that travel network providers typically offer. I have also used travel eSIMs in Japan and had generally a pretty poor experience (bad coverage and slow speeds). Conversely, I've had non-travel, regular monthly eSIM contracts in both the UK and Germany and experienced few issues (at least no more than my experience with physical SIM cards).
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#17I've never used one but am biased against them because they seem like a step toward a future where it's impossible to unplug a device from The System at all.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#18It's been great for me. I just went to Europe and used an eSIM with a different plan while I was there. The biggest issue is that it required some unique settings deep in the iPhone config, but once those were properly set it all worked great.
Also it was kinda cool having two lines for a day before I left.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#19Airalo works well on my iPhone for travel. I had super fast data in Europe (including UK), Japan, Mexico.
IIRC the rates are not competitive compared to local plans though, so not sure if it's worth it for you.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
#20This is the fateful combination of O2 and Android together, possibly the worst experience in the universe (from experience). Nothing but trouble for years.
I dumped my Pixel 6A and O2 a couple of years back after a roaming shit show in Iceland where they billed me £400 and went iOS and Giffgaff. Despite giffgaff being the same company in theory keeping a physical sim with them has been trouble free. And I just add an additional eSIM when travelling wherever and everything just works! Giffgaff gives you 5Gb of roaming a month as well in Europe which is good enough for the odd weekend here and there if you are careful and enable low data mode.