We did countless research about cellphones before going to Korea and all we found was that it was almost impossible to get a cellphone on your own and to an extent this is true, but what we did not know and what other blogs failed to inform us about were sim cards! Before we bought a cell phone we came with the idea that our phone would not work at all because it's a GSM phone and Korea's phones run on CDMA. Now that we're here we learned that this is not completely true. Everywhere we walked we saw signs that said GSM PHONE and for us this was great except for a minor detail; we did not unlock our phones before coming since the misleading information we found suggested our phones would be useless and so we were forced to buy a phone. When it came to buying a phone we actually had helped from our program manager Jaehoon who did all the talking for us and thankfully got a good deal on phones! What we did was go around different phone shops to find the cheapest one. We bought used phones because we'll only be here for four months and we were able to find cheap smart phones too! We thought we were going to have to settle for a flip phone, but we really wanted smart phones for the apps that will definitely come in handy such as subway apps and so on. Beware it is important to have someone who speaks Korean with you because most likely people will not speak fluent english and that can be a difficult if not impossible process and sometimes they will try to rip you off. Of course this does not apply to everybody, but we did have some people trying to overcharge us for the phones which we ended up finding cheaper at another place.
Our phones are not CDMA, we bought GSM Korean phones and also bought a prepaid sim card; something we had no idea was available. Other people in the program who had unlocked phones were able to simply buy prepaid sim cards for their phones which was great, but I must add that not everyone was able to use their phone even though they were unlocked. People who had iphones had to get new phones. The sim card was about $20 and as of right now I am not exactly sure how it completely works, but from what I've learned it's best to use wifi and save the phone calls and texts for emergencies as well as making sure that you have nothing running on your phone (apps) so that you don't get overcharged. If you don't mind spending or recharging your card often then it's fine, but this is where apps such as Skype, Line, Whatsapp and Kakao Talk come in. They allow you to make free calls and send messages using wifi which save you a lot of money. Also wifi will only work if you have a Korean phone or sim card because in order to connect to the wifi you must have your passport number, full name and email. If you're planning to stay in Korea for a few months then buying a used phoneand a sim card is definitely your best option and cheaper than signing a contract or renting a phone. It is also best to pay with cash because Jaehoon informed us that using a debit card/ credit card would add 10% tax.
This is what you will need when getting a phone in Korea:
Passport or copy of your passport
Cash
That's pretty much it at least when it comes to buying a used phone and getting a sim card. The great thing about our study abroad program is that Jaehoon was nice enough to do all the paper work for us.
*UPDATE:
When I first wrote this article iphones were pretty much new in Korea, but as long as it's unlocked, the sim card will also work on it. Also for some reason iphones and other apple products seem to get better service too especially in places like the subway and so on.
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