Will apps work in other countries?

[Irrelevant]

I am going to spend 3 months in Belize and I would love to be able to use google translator. I was also wondering if the satellite apps will work without using towers (like skymap when I'm in the jungle). Also, I was wondering if I were to have my phone turned off by verizon for the 3 months to save money, what will work and what will not (wifi? google voice?)

 

[omnibus]

Most games and programs wholly on your Droid should work. Anything that has to reach out to the internet will be chancy at best.

 

[hookbill]

Most games and programs wholly on your Droid should work. Anything that has to reach out to the internet will be chancy at best.

If that's the case then if the OP has WiFi it shouldn't be an issue, correct?

I was wondering about shutting the device down for 3 months to save money. It doesn't seem to me that you would still have any kind of service if you shut the device service down. I could be wrong.

 

[Mr Steve]

Shutting off the service shouldn't be any different than putting the phone in airplane mode, should it? Actually, airplane mode might be less restrictive than no service as the phone (since it's not talking to the towers) wouldn't know it didn't have any service. Either way you'd want to enable AM just to save the battery by preventing the phone trying to connect.

Then again, do your missed calls & texts still get registered during your hiatus? When the service is turned back on do you get a massive dump of texts? Do missed calls (all of them for the three months) go directly to voicemail or do callers get a 'this number is unavailable' message and aren't able to leave a voicemail?

I'd assume the Internet enable apps would work as long as you had access to the web via WiFi. (pause for some testing ...) Yep, with AM enabled & WiFi turned on I can still access my web based apps.

Interesting question even though I don't see myself heading anywhere 'out of range' for more than a couple of weeks at a time at most.

 

[hookbill]

Shutting off the service shouldn't be any different than putting the phone in airplane mode, should it? Actually, airplane mode might be less restrictive than no service as the phone (since it's not talking to the towers) wouldn't know it didn't have any service. Either way you'd want to enable AM just to save the battery by preventing the phone trying to connect.

Then again, do your missed calls & texts still get registered during your hiatus? When the service is turned back on do you get a massive dump of texts? Do missed calls (all of them for the three months) go directly to voicemail or do callers get a 'this number is unavailable' message and aren't able to leave a voicemail?

I'd assume the Internet enable apps would work as long as you had access to the web via WiFi. (pause for some testing ...) Yep, with AM enabled & WiFi turned on I can still access my web based apps.

Interesting question even though I don't see myself heading anywhere 'out of range' for more than a couple of weeks at a time at most.

Calls you would miss, but I don't think there would be a record of it if you shut service down. Text would not be a problem, you can text if you're in a wifi area so you should receive those.

But what if you're out of WiFi when the text is sent? That could be an issue.

 

[coolkidd]

If any of you guys ever go to a different country, just make sure you do not roam (DATA or VOICE). A friend of mine was charge $120 for roaming last year and he did not even know about roaming charges. Best way is just get a cheap phone on where you are going or rather get a GSM phone where you can just buy minutes/data and add this phone to your GV.

 

[Sleeve]

Belize has three CDMA carriers, see link below. You could roam there, but +1 to coolkidd on what that bill will look like. I'd shut off the 3G, because the local carriers do offer EV-DO Rev A, aka 3G. By default, a Droid will not roam 3G unless you tell it to in Settings/Wireless/Roaming. I assume there's some sort of "Are you loco?" popup that appears when you enable it.

CDG : Worldwide : CDMA Worldwide

Satellite works everywhere. I was in Belgium in December and had no trouble with GPS.

On wifi, there are minor differences in frequencies internationally and I'm not positive that Belize is on the same frequencies as the US. When I used wifi in Belgium, is was with my own travel router connected to hotel ethernet. I know there are frequencies in common between the US and Europe, but I didn't access any free wifi while there.

 

[Irrelevant]

Thanks guys

It looks like it'll be $2.89 a minute for roaming. I hope to be able to just use wifi and google voice. Will that work? Also, I heard of cracking the phone to use google maps/navigation outside of the U.S. , can I check that via wifi? If it works?

 

[Mr Steve]

Text would not be a problem, you can text if you're in a wifi area so you should receive those.

But what if you're out of WiFi when the text is sent? That could be an issue.

Interesting, I didn't know that texts could come over WiFi. A future experiment seems to be needed. That would make traveling in Europe a bit more seamless. While I'm not too worried about getting calls over there (I don't get many calls over here) updating the folks back home with photos & emails from my Droid while in a WiFi spot would be nice. Add texts to that and it's even better, especially if it holds delivery until connected. Google Voice (app works over WiFi) will alert me to any missed calls and/or voice mails.

Connected in a sense, but still free to enjoy vacation.

 

[hookbill]

It looks like it'll be $2.89 a minute for roaming. I hope to be able to just use wifi and google voice. Will that work? Also, I heard of cracking the phone to use google maps/navigation outside of the U.S. , can I check that via wifi? If it works?

In your settings/wireless & network/mobile networks make sure Data Roaming is unchecked. That ought to do it.

 

[karimarie]

I'm way late to this thread, but since I stumbled on it through a Google search, I thought I'd add my own $0.02.

I've taken my Droid to Italy and Costa Rica. Both times I kept it in airplane mode but turned on wifi and GPS. I only tried using GPS w/ Google Maps while I was connected to wifi, and that was very hit-or-miss. I'm heading to Europe this summer for a few weeks and I'm going to try out a few different GPS-only (no maps) apps there.

Google Voice was *great*. I didn't try calling out over wifi, but whenever I was connected to wifi, I was able to send and receive texts with no problem whatsoever (although for longer conversations I used GTalk, since GV does have that 5-minute refresh thing when sending texts.) Voicemail was really nice to have. My apps ran without a problem. The best thing to me, though, was the camera--I was able to take tons of pics, do a bit of in-phone editing w/ PicSayPro, and email them to my Flickr--it'd store the unsent pics until whenever I had a wifi connection, and then it'd send 'em all at once. I really loved it--in fact, I brought my laptop with me, but the only time I really took it out was at the airport, and to offload pictures from my DSLR.

Another bonus--when at US airports and hotels, I used my phone to tether so that I didn't have to pay for internet. When I was at a hotel in Costa Rica, wifi cost, so I paid for it for my phone, and then the one time I wanted to use my laptop to upload some pictures, I tethered my phone to my laptop so that I didn't have to pay for a second connection.

I love my Droid.

 

[takeshi]

Interesting, I didn't know that texts could come over WiFi.

I think it's going to depend on what app you use for texts. You can always test by switching to airplane mode and enabling only WiFi.