Job Discussion Forums

Synne · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 269 Location: Tohoku

I will be headed to the Tokyo area (Chiba,Saitama,Kanagawa) this August and am curious to know which phone company I should get on with.

My girlfriend (who is from Chiba) recommended a few companies: Docomo, Au and Vodafone.

Can anyone give me their opinion on which company is the best bang for my buck? I will be phoning home to Canada the odd night and will be using my phone a bit, but not overly much seeing as I will be new to the country. The internet option on the cell phone would be nice, but is not necessary.

Thank you all in advance.

azarashi sushi · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 562 Location: Shinjuku

Basically, they're all the same.

Timuli · Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 51 Location: Saitama

Docomo appears to be the most popular, probably because they have the most "gadgety" cells.

Most teachers I know use Vodafone. With Vodafone its cheaper to email other users of the same company than let's say Docomo to Docomo. You can also receive longer emails (My Docomo friends always complain me emails are to long and they don't receive all of it lol)

As for phoning overseas, get Brastel or a similar company that deals with oversea phone calls. MUCH better rates.

Internet, TV, emailing, digicam recording, games, MP3 playback and a bunch of other features are available on many phones. Question is do you really need them? I still have my "old" keitai that only takes shoddy pictures, no movie camera, nor TV. Dont need it. Just email and phoning

TokyoLiz · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan

I'm really happy with Vodafone - check this url for Japan info

http://www.vodafone.com/external/0,3050,LANGUAGE_ID%253D0%2526CONTENT_ID%253D0,00.html

My bill is usually about Y10,000 / month. I recieve and send email to webmail accounts, can take pictures and send them, too, and get a range of news services.

Brastel or another international card is the only way to go, IMHO. It's just too expensive to pay for your long distance calling through the cel phone bill. Each month, I probably do an hour of LD calling. Using the phone card, I don't get charged for the use of the cel phone.

Docomo certainly does have some great phones that are more camera than phone. My buddy was taking video, often 3 minutes at a time, complete with sound, loading it onto a memory card and dropping the files onto his laptop. In addition, many of the Docomo phones now have zoom functions, so you might consider getting one if you want quick video and stills to put up on the Internet pronto.