Just curious.
I used eSim for a while when I first got a phone that supported eSim, because I wanted to make it harder for a thief to disable the phone tracking, but now my main phone is broken and I’m a bit annoyed at having to chat with customer support for half and hour to activate eSim on another device.
I use a physical sim. I’m not sure it even supports eSIM, but I’d be hesitant to ditch the physical sim for precisely the reasons you mentioned. I’ve swapped sims around between phones and even borrowed them from people when I was in a new area, something that’s much harder with eSIMs.
Physical, because “it just works”. I have had a SIM fail on me once, but I was quickly able to get a replacement. Popped out the old one and popped in the new one. No fuss.
eSIM on the other hand requires competency from both your device manufacturer and service provider, and is a mess to deal with if anything goes wrong. The phone manufacturer will blame the service provider and vice versa.
I’ve had two unpleasant experiences trying to activate an eSIM, and I don’t plan on using it again soon – at least not until every Android device manufacturer does an Apple and goes eSIM-only.
I use a physical SIM because my phone doesn’t support an eSIM, also i’m preety sure you have to activate it everytime you clean flash a custom ROM.
I’m not an expert in technology, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t delete eSims since they are actually stored in a separate chip. I’ve done some experients with wiping data (I’m always curious about new tech so I always do some testing to satisfy my curiosity) via remote wipe, both Android and iOS, I’ve intentionally entered incorrect password to get it to reset, and I’ve used the recovery menu in android to reset it, and I’ve used android apps that lets you wipe data via the device admin feature. The eSim always persisted unless you specifically choose to delete it, so I think flashing a rom isn’t gonna be different as long as your don’t send a command to the eSim chip to wipe the eSim data.
Which can be a bit worrying if a theif is able to reset your phone and bypass the anti-theft device activation features (which is difficult, but not impossible), they could use your eSim if it doesn’t have a Sim pin to protect it, which nobody even thinks about locking the eSim since most people would assume it is safe behind the phone’s lockscreen and it would get deleted in a device reset, but the eSims never get reset unless you specifically chose to.
Physical SIM. Mostly because I’ve never tried to buy a SIM in a country where eSIMs exist yet. It’s kind of annoying, as it’s the only way I can dual-SIM my phone.
Current eSIM possibilities in given countries:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209096I’ve been using a physical sim for a while and while I normally would be fine with esim I’ve heard of various issues with them including having tethering data be used as normal data. There’s also the ease of switching between phones with a physical sim so for now I’ll continue using it.
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No I’ve read about issues where after switching to esim people have had all phone data get reported as if it was tethered. For example if you have 2 gigs of tethering data included with your unlimited plan then you effectively have only 2 gigs of data if this issue affected you.
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Canadian providers all charge about $15 a day to “roam like home”. For about $20 I can buy a 30 day 5GB data only plan for Europe. Getting a European phone number doubles the cost as most of those plans have much more data as well. You can buy the plans before you leave, download and install the eSIM so you’re ready to go when you arrive.
The wife and I both bought Pixel 7’s this year as they support eSIM. We’re in England right now. Our cost roaming would have been $600+. Only one of us needed a local phone number, and the has just data, and the cost was maybe $70.
Canadians are getting robbed. Roaming for me, if I travelled to Canada from the UK, would be £15 a month added to my plan, and I have one of the more expensive providers (EE). That’s with the same limits so like 200GB data.
My phone doesn’t have eSIM option, so physical.
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Phone numbers and SMS should never have been involved with user authentication beyond simple contact info. Smartphones really ruined it.
Both. Sim card for my country’s provider. eSim when I’m abroad for cheaper rates.
Physical SIM because I have that card since a few years and I am too lazy to request an eSIM. In the end it simply does not matter at all.
Dito, also I don’t want to pay 20 bucks for a „replacement“ SIM on my contract, since my SIM isn’t broken/lost
Using both. Just emigrated from the US but keeping my Fi number as I’ve still got roots there, meanwhile I can swap physical SIMs as I jockey services here.
Physical SIM. No way to use eSIM in my phone. Even if it had, I’d have gone with physical one.
I was leery of eSIM when it first came out. Seemed like it was just a way for carriers to prevent you from swapping because you’d have to go through hoops.
After I got my iPhone 14 pro however, I actually really like it. I went on my honeymoon and didn’t have any cell service and I didn’t speak the local language (I’m an idiot), but luckily I was able to use WiFi and get an eSIM setup with a local carrier in like 15 minutes all without having to go to the store. It was great.
Stares in American
This isn’t exclusively an American thing. I went to China and it’s extremely common to see SIM cards being hawked on the street and sold to tourists. They’re disposable and quite convenient. You buy them on the street, pop the SIM card in, get an activation text, and then you get data for a week before it stops working and you throw it away. They come with different data amounts and durations. But eSIMs do exist as well there, although it’s not nearly as convenient. You need to register your identity (surveillance purposes) and sign up for a regular phone contract. I haven’t seen any disposable eSIM plans there yet.
Phone models sold in China (even iphones) have had dual sim capabilities for a long time before eSims were a thing. I mean like 2 physical sim card slots in a phone. Adoption of eSims isn’t much of a necessity when the phone itself already can carry 2 sims by default.
On the other hand American phone models only ever had the one sim card slot. It’s a bit strange that eSims haven’t been as widely adopted.
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I think that’s because of Chinese people’s travelling habits. Popular domestic travel destinations include Hainan for a tropical experience, Sichuan for pandas, Beijing for landmarks, Hong Kong for fake Britain, Macau for gambling, and Taiwan because it seems foreign enough without being actually too foreign (to Chinese people).
Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan require travel permits to enter, despite the Chinese government considering them “domestic”. They kinda straddle the line between actual domestic and international. Regardless, it’s not common for Chinese people to have phone plans that work in Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan, so they’ll buy the disposable SIM cards I talked about earlier. That’s why phones typically have two SIM slots.
Getting visas to travel internationally is a pain for Chinese people because they have to visit a consulate or embassy, apply, and then be subject to high scrutiny. After all, it seems everyone’s scared of Chinese spies nowadays. It’s also very expensive by Chinese standards compared to applying for a cheap HK/MO/TW travel permit. The People’s Republic of China passport is pretty weak compared to European or American passports. Chinese people can get visa-on-arrival or visa-free access in South Asian countries, Central Asia, or Africa, but these destinations are not popular with Chinese tourists.
Physical since I carried it over from my old phone which didn’t support eSIM.
I did get an eSIM some time ago for a short vacation in switzerland though. The activation went surprisingly smooth even though I had to wait a day before they verified me. The verification delay was probably because I used a foreign ID to register at a swiss provider for that eSIM.
