My friend's eSIM experience with Tello was pretty good. Their kid got their first phone with an eSIM, and it was stolen a few months later. They were able to transfer the number to a new phone from the Tello website.
Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
131–140 of 292 posts
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I didn’t have to try to track down my sim slot key, This made me laugh.
Why? Because you can use pretty much any slim pointy object you can find?
Most small paperclips work, I think.
I was even offered paperclips to keep at airport SIM counters before.
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most phones that cost less than ~300 USD still have a headphone jack and microSD slot. I've never understood spending more than that on a phone anyway, you can't exactly use all that processing power on a phone operating system. Unfortunately some of the bad features from expensive phones have been moving down to the cheaper ones, like the destroyed screen that's missing its corners and has a hole for the camera in i…
I just bought a newer phone and was surprised to see even the ~$200 Samsungs were lacking a headphone jack. That threw them right out of contention, so I ended up getting a 2024-model Motorola (the 2025s were $50 more and reviews said they offered no meaningful performance boost).
I get it, but the quality of headphones with cords has gotten so bad that the male jacks wouldn't last more than a few months. My son has gone through an untold number of corded headphones because his school iPad is too locked down to use bluetooth ones.
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#134Totally different experience. Especially when traveling for work, being able to just show up in a country, download an app, and have a working local number within minutes is fantastic. I have 6 eSIMs on my iPhone, two are active. No stuffing about with swapping physical hardware just because I've temporarily relocated myself.
"No stuffing about with swapping physical hardware just because I've temporarily relocated myself."
That's exactly the use case for which the carriers offer roaming plans. The bonus is that you (as in your phone number) get to remain connected and accessible by your contacts, as no other phone number is involved at any point. One should not need to change the SIM unless is about one's phone change.
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#135I just abandoned AT&T (finally) and transitioned to US Mobile (on VZW) in about 10 minutes thanks to eSIM. New iPhone's don't even work with a regular sim card any longer. Seems like most of the complaints in here re: eSIM are around how a specific carrier deals with it and less about the technology itself?
> New iPhone's don't even work with a regular sim card any longer.
Many countries still sell iPhone 17 series with physical SIM slots.
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups You can’t actually backup an eSIM. If you could, they would be easy to clone. I know Apple uses that terminology, but that isn’t what is happening in the background. Same with transferring an eSIM. A new one is issued each time.
Isn't that just semantics? It's tied to the same phone number, and I assume the generation of a new eSIM invalidates any old one (as happens with my carrier.) It's essentially backed up, even if it's just a (carrier, number) pair. If the Lyca account is trashed, the rest is just an implementation detail.
>the rest is just an implementation detail.
Is the fact that you don't actually own a game you bought on steam, or a movie you bought on itunes (eg. if either of them went under, or you got banned) also "just semantics" and "implementation detail"?
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#137> We gave up the headphone jack. We gave up the microSD card. Some people might have given it up. I personally own a Sony Xperia phone, and intend to buy another Xperia next year, which will almost certainly still have both. In fact Sony is the one manufacturer that returned to a headphone jack after having removed it for a while. It might be more expensive than the competition, but this is my voting with my wallet.
But why? What's wrong with Bluetooth?
What wrong with a lossy signal?
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#138I had zero issue upgrading my iPhone from one eSIM device to the next. In fact, I even forgot that I had to do anything, it just did it.
I upgraded from an iPhone 11 to a 17 and was dreading having to sign in to my carrier’s web site to get an eSIM QR code. I was surprised to see that the phone migration process took care of that - at the end I had the new phone with an eSIM and my usual number, and the old phone with a deactivated SIM card. Super convenient.
> I was surprised to see that the phone migration process took care of that - at the end I had the new phone with an eSIM and my usual number, and the old phone with a deactivated SIM card.
It's nice to know that you're on a telco that supports "eSIM Quick Transfer", but that's still a feature that telcos need to explicitly support.
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#139Verizon (and their MVNOs) eSIMs are the worst. Registration is tied to IMEI and enforced via the eSIM's EID. You can't use one if those "physical" eSIMs because if you give Verizon a donor IMEI during registration, the EID of the eSIM doesn't match and activation is rejected.
I was using Straight Talk prior to the Verizon acquisition and I've been holding-on to my one remaining pre-acquisition SIM like a rent controlled apartment. I've moved that SIM through a number of phones since I got it back in 2013. I absolutely hate that, moving forward, I have to get Verizon's permission to switch phones.
Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why? What's wrong with Bluetooth?
latency is absolute killer. then there's also the fact that splitting the output is difficult, pairing (especially multi-pairing) is finicky but the real response is "what's wrong with a usb-c to 3.5mm adapter"
> but the real response is "what's wrong with a usb-c to 3.5mm adapter"
Easy. You can't charge and listen to your headphones at the same time.