Which is Better? Pocket WiFi vs SIM / eSIM for Japan in 2024

konnichiwa while Japan may have Gundam the shinkansen and Super Nintendo World they don't make it easy to get a data plan if you want to stay connected while you're traveling in Japan you either need to bring your own data and risk High roaming charges or you can pre-poke the SIM card or a pocket Wi-Fi and if you're from the United States you have one more option this information is based on our own experiences over the years and some recent research let's compare the options I'll give you some recommendations then you can decide which of these options will work best for you on your trip to Japan first thing is your mobile phone unlocked your options will depend on whether you have an unlocked phone or not what is an unlocked phone an unlocked phone is a phone that is not tied to any particular company or network let's say you purchase your phone from either Verizon or T-Mobile the chances are your phone is locked because what they do is they only let you use your phone on their Network now if you purchased your phone outright let's say you purchase purchased it from a company like apple or Best Buy and you paid for it in full then your phone will be unlocked if you are unsure if your phone is locked or unlocked the sure way to find out is to ask your mobile carrier they'll know the answer and if your phone is locked which will be the majority of us then your only option is to rent a pocket Wi-Fi so let's get into that pocket Wi-Fi or hotspot pocket Wi-Fi is a wireless router that allows you to connect multiple devices such as mobile phones laptops tablets using a cellular data Network think of it as having a Wi-Fi router in your pocket because it's that small these devices are super popular in Japan and there's a good chance your accommodation may even have one what are the benefits of a pocket Wi-Fi well first they're super easy it's just as if you're connecting to your home network or if you're at a cafe and you can easily connect multiple devices at the same time usually between five and ten you don't have to worry about having an unlocked phone and the networks are usually plenty fast using 4G speeds they have great battery life usually nine plus hours of usage you can bring it anywhere because it fits easily into your pocket or in your backpack you can also easily rent these online and either have them delivered to your accommodation or pick them up at an airport this depends on the carrier who you rent it from and you can also choose different data plans depending on how much data you need what are some of the cons if you got to carry around an extra device and a charging cable second if you lose it or damage it you're going to have to pay a fine it could be more expensive than renting a SIM card and if you're in a group of people your group separates well guess what only the person who has the Wi-Fi is still going to have internet but overall we love pocket Wi-Fi's they are our go-to and our choice we always rent one every time we come to Japan we've used pocket Wi-Fi's all over Japan on buses trains and Parks you name it everywhere pretty much and they just always seem to work and the speeds are usually plenty fast enough so we can watch YouTube our son could be playing video games online at the same time and usually we have no issues at all so having a pocket y for families or large groups is a no-brainer because it really makes it easy to share your internet where can you get a pocket Wi-Fi there is no shortage of online stores renting pocket Wi-Fi's and you can even rent one at the airport but your best bet is to rent it ahead of time so when you arrive in Japan it's either waiting at your accommodation or you can just stop at the office and quickly pick it up without having to fill out a bunch of paperwork if you are purchasing a Jr pass we recommend jrpass.com because when you go through the process you can actually rent a pocket Wi-Fi they use ninja Wi-Fi which we recommend they are a great company we use them multiple times and have always had good service with them the prices are competitive on that website and also you get insurance which is very nice the next option is clue.com we use them all the time as well and they have a ton of options however I look through all of them and only recommend a few I'll also provide links to ninja Wi-Fi's website and to soccer on mobile which we'll discuss a little bit later now here's a pro tip when you rent a pocket Wi-Fi make sure that is connecting to one of the fastest and largest networks and that would be either docomo or SoftBank it is not one of those I just wouldn't take a chance with it because you want to make sure that you are connected second there are many companies that allow you to do an airport pickup however please keep in mind that these offices are not open 24 hours a day so you want to check the times that they are open and the times they close because the last thing you want to happen is either your plane is delayed or you get stuck in customs and by the time you get out the pickup place is closed that would not be good all right let's go over the options I recommend on clue I'll separate these into two categories either Airport pickup or delivery let's start with Airport pickup if you are a power user then your best option would be through ninja Wi-Fi as mentioned earlier we have used ninja Wi-Fi on multiple occasions to Japan we've always had good service and some of the things we do besides watching YouTube videos is uploading YouTube videos as well as using them to watch movies and we usually don't have any problems one of the great things about Ninja Wi-Fi is they allow you to choose an allotment of data per day it's either three gigs five gigs or 10 gigs now why you might want to do this is because you will eventually be throttled so a lot of companies are going to say unlimited data well that's only partially true because there's something called a fair usage policy and this is across the board no matter who you rent from this Fair usage policy will eventually come into play and what that says basically is that at any time if the network feels like you are using too much data they can throttle you even if you have unlimited data it doesn't matter if you can be throttled at any time and when that happens the speed can be ridiculously slow so slow that you can't even use it now a lot of them will say a minimum of 256k however sometimes it is even slower than that and sometimes it's faster than that if this does happen to you and it's happened to me on many occasions what you need to do is wait till the speed comes back and this is usually around 11 pm at night for some strange reason at least in our case we always got full speed again at 11 o'clock okay this next option it is a 4G network and what I like about it is it includes a power bank and you can't beat the price it is super cheap if you look at the reviews there's a ton of really good reviews on here so people have had success with this even though as it says unlimited you can't trust that it is following Fair usage policy so my guess is that this is a slower Network than ninja but for most people this is probably perfectly fine and again having the power bank is a nice feature with the airport pickups you got to keep in mind that this is not available in all airports throughout Japan so if you are not going to be coming into Japan at one of these airports your next option is a delivery option where they can send it directly to your hotel or other accommodations okay so I have two options for delivery as well this first one is through Sakura mobile I've personally never used system however they've been around for a very long time I do recommend them as an option if you do need to have the Wi-Fi delivered to your accommodation they also use LTE which is long-term Evolution and in general that means you're going to be on a fast Network however there is no guaranteed speed and I couldn't find anything listed about what you can expect however it should be pretty fast and they also use the docomo network which covers almost all of Japan so you should be covered wherever you are unless you're in some very very remote place and this next one is another cheaper option and it also comes with a power bank what's nice about this one is you can see that it connects up to 10 devices which is pretty nice but please take any consideration it's just because it can be mailed it doesn't mean that you can be in any type of accommodation for sure no problems in hotels however if you are staying in an Airbnb someone needs to be at the residence to receive the package if nobody is there then you will not be able to receive this so if you are going to be staying at an Airbnb and you prefer to go the delivery method then make sure you contact your host and ask them if they can receive a package for you if they cannot then you will not be able to use this method here are some general tips about renting a pocket Wi-Fi first of all your device it may be in Japanese what I mean is when you turn it on the menus might all be in Japanese so if this is the case I highly highly recommend as soon as you pick up your Wi-Fi let's say if you are going to pick it up at the airport is open the package right there and test it because if it's in Japanese you can just ask them to translate it for you and tell you how to use it or you can ask them to switch it to an English menu if that's also an option if you have any issues with the device they can take care of it right there and then next make sure that you have Google translate installed on your phone because what it allows you to do is take pictures of anything that's in Japanese and translate it the right there on the Fly and it's usually right most of the time if it translated and it's like I'm not sure about that hit it again you can actually press on it and it will re-translate it and eventually it's going to get it right so this could be a huge Lifesaver not only in translating your pocket Wi-Fi but for anything like you're in a grocery store and trying to read the ingredients of a package and finally always have your device fully charged so as soon as you get back to your accommodation make sure you plug that in so it'll be ready for you the next time you go out also if you're taking Express trains limited Express trains and shinkansen they usually always have outlets for you to charge your devices again I will leave links to all of these in the description below okay let's assume that you have an unlocked phone if you are from the United States and currently in the United States then I highly recommend Google Phi if you are not from the United States feel free to skip ahead there are time stamps for all the chapters in the description below in fact as a digital Nomad for the past 15 years this is one of the best hacks that we know of especially if you have either a dual SIM phone or an esim phone as this will allow you to be able to have multiple phone numbers active at the same time so if you are interested in the digital Nomad lifestyle we have a ton of information on our channel so please subscribe what is Google Phi Google fi is a mobile virtual Network operator mvno owned by Google it is a wireless service provider that provides voice text and data services to users from the United States Google fi operates by leveraging networks of multiple cellular carriers one of the great features of Google Phi is they have a flexible pricing model you pay a base rate for unlimited Voice and text and then you pay for data based on the amount of usage the super feature is that international data is available at no extra charge in over 200 countries including Japan so what are the main benefits of using Google file in Japan it will use the local networks such as SoftBank which covers 99 of Japan you can tether your device which means you can connect up to 10 devices at a time that is super awesome for us as a family of five you can cancel your plan at any time so if you're visiting Japan for a two-week trip as soon as you get home you can cancel it you can also easily switch plans at the beginning of each month and they have two plans for travelers let's talk about unlimited plus so if you use a lot of data then the unlimited plan is the way to go that is 50 gigabytes of data per month that you can use before you will be throttled and that speed will be 256 kilobits per seconds afterwards now if you need more faster speed after you've reached that limit you can pay ten dollars per gigabyte of usage and as mentioned earlier you can tether up to 10 devices at a time you can text for free to the US Mexico and Canada now this is huge for us especially let's say if you need to log into your bank while you're in Japan it's going to ask you for two-factor authentication right and it's going to want to send you a text message to your phone well with Google fi you won't have to pay for that so very nice if you need to make local calls that is 20 cents per minute while in Japan but you could also use Wi-Fi calling if that is available on your phone and that is a lot cheaper the second plan they have is called the flexible plan and this is the plan we use most of the time because usually we aren't using the data very much on our Google fi plan we keep it mainly as a phone number that we can have to the United States at all the time the main purpose of why we use it is when we arrive in any country so let's say we're going to arrive in Japan as soon as we arrive we can turn off the airplane mode and Google fi kicks in almost instantly and this is great if we just need to use the internet right away so with this plan data is not actually included instead you will pay ten dollars per gigabyte of usage that's kind of high so you don't really want to use that much however if you did use it a lot let's say you used up to 10 that is a maximum you would be charged for after 10 and all the way up to 15 there's no charge 15 is when they would start a throttle you so what are some of the cons of Google Phi well first of all your phone needs to be unlocked second you need to be from the United States and you must be in the United States in order to sign up for the plan and if you're using your device as a hotspot your battery will deplete faster and your phone might get really hot sometimes and while setup is pretty easy if you run into problems Google files service at least in our experience has been horrendous but to sum up we love Google Phi and we've been using them for over five years now we've used Google fi extensively throughout Japan all over and we've really had no issues with it whenever we need to use the phone that worked well as two by having the flexible plan it's actually really cheap because we hardly use the data so again as I mentioned before we only usually use it when we arrive in a country and we need data right away so let's say we average 100 megabytes of usage per month well that will only cost us one dollar since one gigabyte is ten dollars if you are interested in Google Phi I will leave a referral code in the description below where both you and I will get a 20 credit if your account has been active for 30 days the final option is a SIM card or esim again this option is only going to work if you have an unlocked phone so what is a SIM card well in simplified terms it is a tiny chip that allows your phone to make calls and use the internet now most of the SIM cards available out there are data only that means you can only use the internet you can't make phone calls with it we personally have never purchased a SIM card for usage in Japan because our preference has always been the pocket Wi-Fi and will probably continue to be a pocket Wi-Fi but we've done our research and I have a lot of good options for you first let's talk about some of the pros of having a SIM card first you will only need your smartphone you won't need to carry around another device or extra cables second they are usually cheaper than carrying around a pocket Wi-Fi third they're probably the best option if you're solo and you only need to connect internet to one device fourth you can purchase these at kiosk at the airport but again your best bet is to pre-book these ahead of time also the speeds are really fast and you don't need to return anything you can just discard the SIM card when you're done with it some of the cons well a lot of companies don't guarantee that you can tether with a SIM card meaning that you will only be able to connect one device second the battery of your phone is probably going to drain faster if you are able to tether with that device third most of the SIM cards are data only means they don't have a local number connected to them four you're going to have to activate the SIM card and for some people this can be kind of difficult especially if you're not tech savvy but in general it's kind of easy the good thing is it is pretty easy to purchase a SIM card you can do these online which again is the recommended way that way you can have this ready for you as soon as you arrive in Japan again I recommend clue and using Sakura Mobile in particular here with this option you can pick it up at the airport they use the docomo network which is the largest in the country and they claim to cover more territory than any other network in the country and you can also use it as a Wi-Fi hotspot they do say that this is available which is great now as you can see this is only available for pickup in Tokyo and Osaka if you are not entering Japan at one of these locations you can still use Sakura mobile but you will just have to go directly through the website I will put a link to that in the description below so what if you need a local Japanese number while you're in Japan if you do need a SIM with a local Japanese number then I recommend mobile.com they are a very well known and reputable company they also have a good guarantee that they are doing their part to make the world a better place by donating the majority of their profits to charity they offer a service that includes voice text and data but you need to purchase at least a 30-day plan if you want a sim card with a local number for their networks they use both SoftBank and docomo so those two are the ones I highly recommend so you will be covered well during your trip to Japan some of their cons they don't guarantee that tethering will work link to mobile will be in the description below and finally e-sims are there any options yes in fact this might be the easiest one to set up out of any of them first of all you obviously need a device that is esim capable and that would be a lot of the newer devices such as the iPhone 14 us version I did a lot of research on this as I was very curious on this myself and a ton of options came up so I sifted through a lot of them and the best one I could find was you biggie in particular based on all the reviews that I came across they had the best overall service for Japan some of the pros it's really easy to set up and activate you can tether there's no physical Sim so you don't need to pick up anything or return anything the pricing is very competitive and can be quite cheap especially for Japan another really nice feature is you can top up that means if you are running out of data you can add more to it by logging onto your account online you can't do that with the data Sims that you purchased through the other companies so that is a really nice feature of esims as it's all done online and finally you might get 5G speeds so that could be a really nice boost the cons well data only here there are no versions of the e-sims that I could find that came with a local number it also requires you to install an app on your phone to get it to work and it is possible with any Sim even though this is esim that you could run into issues setting it up and depending on the plan that you choose it can get expensive so in general it's quite cheap link to You biggie in the description below I hope you now have a good understanding of the different types of options you have to stay connected while traveling through Japan the easiest solution and the one I recommend is the pocket Wi-Fi as it just always works and is very easy to use then if you have an unlocked phone and you are from United States I highly recommend Google Phi it is just a all-around great service and finally again if you have an unlocked phone and you don't want to carry around an extra device then a SIM card would be the perfect choice for you and even better yet if you have a phone with esim capability then even more options are available to you let me know what you're using and let me know if you have any questions in the comments below next you might want to watch our guide to buying and using the Jr pass or our hacks to seeing Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan just because you have a ticket does not mean you get entry to Super Nintendo World because it is a crazy busy place we are a slow traveling family we have a ton of information about digital Nomad lifestyle traveling as a family and a lot of information about traveling Japan so make sure you subscribe thanks and we'll see in the next one

Channel: Kensho Quest

Views: 383,492

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Id: 2fhdT0Ubxmo

Length: 19min 26sec (1166 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023