I am planning a walking trip to Europe, and I want to blog my way around France and/or Spain. I would at least need email access, although web access could be an advantage. I figure I could write my blog as a memo on a
PDA, and then just email it and have a friend post it, or perhaps paste it onto a blog website. Computer access is limited where I will be. Even finding an AC power outlet may be a problem, as I understand it. (Yes I know Europe is 220V, and I would need a plug adaptor).
I don't own a smartphone right now, and have no desire to pay hundreds of dollars for a phone for just one trip. The Treo 650 seems like it might be a good choice, an unlocked phone costs less than $100 on eBay, has a
QWERTY keyboard, email, web access,
PDA functions, camera, quad band, decent battery life. (I would probably buy a new battery before the trip).
What I want to do is buy a local
SIM, and use a smartphone for local calls and email.
So I have a few questions:
If I buy a prepaid
SIM, will I have data access? (I am thinking
GPRS)
Will it cost me a lot to use data? What about sending photos?
What else do I need to know?
One concern that I have is that I may not have much if any chance to use/test/learn the phone before the trip, so I could easily imagine getting there and not being able to get email working, especially jetlagged. I stopped by AT&T, and they said for $70 a month I could get voice and data. (Since I would own the phone, no contract, just month to month). But $70 to learn to use a phone that might only cost $70 makes no sense to me.