TECH REPORT | John Brandon

4 Smartphones for Overseas Travel

The best phones for your foreign business trips

From left: HTC Aria; Nokia E73 Mode; Samsung Captivate; BlackBerry Bold 9650

Courtesy Companies

From left: HTC Aria; Nokia E73 Mode; Samsung Captivate; BlackBerry Bold 9650

 

Using your cell phone overseas can be a pain, what with poor reception and pricey roaming fees. We added international service plans to the following phones and tested them in Austria to see how they performed. Here are the results.

HTC Aria

This Android phone has a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a 5-megapixel camera, and a great app selection. Calls on the AT&T phone sounded crisp, even in a remote village. One drawback: The phone did not connect to faster local 3G service. International roaming costs $1.29 a minute, and data plans start at $24.99 for 20 MB.
COST: $130 with a two-year contract

Nokia E73 Mode

This affordable T-Mobile phone has a 2.3-inch screen, a full keyboard, and a 5-megapixel camera. The phone connected to 3G service, and calls sounded clear, but it offers a limited number of apps and does not support touch. Overseas, expect to pay $1.29 a minute for calls, 35 cents per text, and $15 per MB for the Web and e-mail.
COST: $30 with a two-year contract

Samsung Captivate

We liked the bright 4-inch touchscreen on this Android phone, which has a 5-megapixel camera and plenty of apps. But calls sounded scratchy and dropped out frequently during our test, even with the same AT&T service as the Aria. Like the Aria, the phone failed to connect to local 3G service for fast speeds.
COST: $200 with a two-year contract

BlackBerry Bold 9650

This Verizon phone has a full keyboard, a 2.4-inch screen, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. It performed poorly during our test, with frequent dropped calls and lackluster sound quality. Verizon's international roaming rates start at $1.29 a minute, texts cost 50 cents each, and unlimited e-mail is $65 a month.
COST: $150 with a two-year contract

John Brandon is a contributing editor at Inc. magazine and writes the Tech Trends column in every issue. He also writes the Tech Report column for Inc.com. @jmbrandonbb