cellphone options for one-year stay in japan

[jns4chat]

i might be spending one year in kagoshima, japan as an exchange student this coming september and would like to get a cellphone while i'm there (both for communication and as a souvenir when i go back home). what options do i have? i've heard a bit about softbank having a half-price discount for students, and a bit about prepaid phones but i don't know enough to make a decision yet.

i usually don't make many calls, i rarely use up more than 30 minutes of call time in a month. please tell me anything you know about this issue and the prices of different plans. thanks in advance!

[sashimidimsum7250]

If you don't intend on talking too much , maybe you should consider a pre-paid keitai:

http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/vie ... highlight=

[jkid]

If you don't intend on talking too much , maybe you should consider a pre-paid keitai:

http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/vie ... highlight=

And if you do?

[jns4chat]

If you don't intend on talking too much , maybe you should consider a pre-paid keitai:

http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/vie ... highlight=

as i'm thinking of keeping the phone afterwards as a souvenir, do prepaid phones look as good as the non-prepaid ones?

[sashimidimsum7250]

I didn't take a look at all the models, but the one I got looks pretty plain. No camera, no mp3 player, etc. Just talking and email. I just got the cheapest they had at that Softbank location.

Check this link:

http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/prepaid/lin ... index.html

I got the V201SH.

If you want to splurge for the pre-paid 3G service, you can get a pretty cool phone:

http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/prepaid/3G/705px/index.html

[aehlke]

Just get the AU "waribiki" student discount service, it's half price. You can't get the latest phones with it, but what you'll get is still better than US phones..

You can get by easily without talking much on phones in Japan. Everyone has email in their phones and use it a LOT - it's great practice and easy to type in Japanese!

Also, if you're going to be in city areas much, try to get a phone that has pedestrian GPS. I did, and it was oonly like $3/month extra, and so worth it. Tokyo can be so hard to navigate otherwise.