Welcome to Tokyo Tuesday if you're a regular viewer welcome back
Today we are talking about staying connected
While traveling and since we're in Japan we might as well add a bit of a Japan touch to it
But in order to do this video properly. I'm gonna need a few props, so
All right first things first ooh
Much better
So let's take a second to talk about staying connected while traveling
This is a topic that I have really mixed feelings on a link of video here where I talk about it and a podcast below
But obviously you can't overstate the importance of being able to stay connected
While traveling and so you want to make sure that you know your options
And you don't want to spend all of your cash just so that you can stay connected now
There are a wild number of options out there when I first came to Japan in like
2005 there were next to no options for staying connected like little portable Wi-Fi routers weren't a thing
Sim rental wasn't a thing and you did not want to use the data roaming
You still don't want to use data roaming because it's gonna cost you and now there is an
abundance of options for how to stay connected while traveling almost to the point where there's too many
So it can be difficult to make the choice. You know what I just put the lens cap
All right, so let's take a second and draw out a few of these options
Just make them really let's talk about what the options are that you have
option number one
Renting a phone. I don't even know if this is still an option to be honest. I haven't done anything like this
Sends back in I'd say
2007 option number 2
Renting a sim and putting it in your existing phone. This is what my little brother did when he came to visit Japan?
Option number three there are apps that will allow you
to connect to a whole bunch of
Wi-Fi in the country for example this one's for Japan all I had to do is put in my email this option here gives us
The map that shows us all the local Wi-Fi connections near where we are you can zoom right into the map?
You can check out the Wi-Fi connection you see what it is this here
also, gives you the option to download the map offline and
That brings us to option number four
Which is some kind of Wi-Fi rental in the past?
I wasn't a huge fan of the Wi-Fi option because these were used to be incredibly expensive
Rental prices were through the roof, and it just it really
Really wasn't worth it
So let's take a look at these here. I'm actually gonna
I'm not gonna go into too much detail on this option because I don't even know if it's still an option
It's something that I haven't even thought about doing since maybe
2007
option number two
sim rental
There are a lot of good options out there for sim rental in fact in Japan
You can get SIM cards right from the vending machine at the airport and in true
Convenient Japanese fashion
They have a prepaid SIM card
option number three
An option number four is going to be Wi-Fi
So what of all of these here just for safety reasons I'm pretty partial to this one and this one
All right so rental SIM cards these are a thing last year at exactly this time my little brother
Jesse came to visit, Japan he was only originally planning to stay two weeks
But he loved his time so he stayed like pretty much an entire month
He went with a SIM card option, and I don't think he was super. Happy about it, but let's give him a call and see
What's up, man
Last year you came to Japan pretty much of exactly this time, right
If you want to say hi to everybody
You kind of looks like Bradley Friesen like if you don't know who Bradley Friesen is all like leave a link to his YouTube channel
Somewhere he's a Canadian helicopter pilot. Anyway. You weren't with the sim card option. How many gigabytes
Was it easy for us to find the SIM card vending machine
Yeah, it took a little like if we had just gotten it at the airport. It was right there at the airport
We didn't do it
The free Wi-Fi, I don't recommend it on its own
But it can be good if you're pairing it with a phone that has a Simran finally rental Wi-Fi
This little guy here was the first Wi-Fi router that I got in Japan. It was like back maybe
2010 2011 I didn't have a smartphone yet who doesn't have a smartphone back in like 2011?
I don't know
Maybe that was normal
But at the time I had paired this with my iPod Touch so that I could stay connected this one was costing me
Maybe four or five thousand in a month
It was really slow at the time, and it just the battery life on it was terrible
It was small and compact but no the next one that I got was maybe
2012 and that was this one here this one was by another company here in Japan
The battery life was definitely much better the price wasn't much different, but luckily by that time
I was able to get about ten gigabytes a month
For that price anything outside of that ten gigabytes would be completely throttled and get really really
slow and say around
2015 I had completely given up on Wi-Fi
routers I
Got my iPhone and figured
I am done with this
So about two weeks ago when this company called I video contacted me and asked me to check out their Wi-Fi router. I was
Understandably skeptical about it, but I said yeah, send it to me. I want to check it out
Let's talk about the simplicity of it first the entire thing comes in this little package
Didn't drop it. It's got a charger. It's got a cable. It's got a case and it's got the device
It is super simple all you've got to do is turn the device on once the thing is turned on
You're ready to go the connection code for it is on the back
You just punch that into your phone, but simplicity and all that aside the big question is is it worth it
Or does it suck I can tell you that it's cheap
I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute
But I wanted to take a second look at the speed so
When I first got this thing the very first thing that I did is I compared it to my home Wi-Fi because my home Wi-Fi
Is not the best, but it works
I can be watching Netflix on my TV uploading a video to YouTube on my own computer and
Downloading software onto my other computer and my Wi-Fi is always held up now
I wanted to compare it to that I'd done a comparison the other day, but I figured why not just do a fresh comparison
Right here and put this on the screen right here
My Wi-Fi is the one that says 106 F
If I go into the speed test app doing that right now, and I go begin test
My home Wi-Fi is having a bad day. Why is this so slow. Let's compare that to the device here
The device is the 501 HW
actually pretty good
Okay, okay, let me just put that aside so the device is
Quick-like so far. I have taken the device through Tokyo I've tested this thing above ground
I've tested in the subways I've tested on the 30th floors of buildings
Little rural areas pretty much everywhere, and it is quick in fact
It is one of the quickest Wi-Fi that I've been connected to over the last two weeks, and it kind of become my main device
But what really got me about this Wi-Fi when I first took a look at it was the price because the price
Doesn't even compare to what you'd be paying for like long-term Wi-Fi rental contracts here in Japan in fact
I opened up their website. Just so I can show you here. It's saying that it's like 31 dollars a month
For renting this stuff right now. I've been going over this company's website for like the last two weeks
Just seeing if I can get a good feel for this and I'm borderline confused it like how they're making money because right now
They're saying that it's like 31 dollars now obviously they have a lot of sales
It seems so you know I'll leave some info for you below
It is unlimited data all throughout, Japan
that's one of the other things that I really like about the Wi-Fi option is because if you're
Traveling as a group you got two three four five people apparently this device will connect up to like eight or nine
It'll connect tumult don't think you're gonna. Have a group of more than nine people sharing one Wi-Fi router, but if you do that
That's that's even cheaper, and you can't do that if you're renting a sim card
Okay, I found it so here is the part that I love the absolute most about it
So there it is they've got this lowest price
guarantee I
Contacted the company
And I actually asked them directly like is it true like will you actually beat any price cuz there's gotta be something cheaper out there
And the prisoner of the company emailed me back and was like yes, we will beat any price
Please let everybody know that
Additionally we are gonna be giving you your own promo code
So I've got all of that linked below if you want even cheaper Wi-Fi
This is so exciting guys
Because I'm sure it's gonna come up because I would be wondering if I was sitting in your chair right now
No, the company's not paying me to talk about any of this for now
They're giving me the Wi-Fi and asking me just to check it out
And if I like it share it with you guys if I don't like it share that with you guys they're like licensing agreement actually
asked me for a true honest reflection of my opinions and
my opinion is that I like this thing I'm
Really excited about this one of the videos that I released last week
I'll link it right there somebody had asked me on Twitter. If there was any way that they could support my channel and
I feel like I kind of sidestep that question because I want to be able to bring something to you guys
And I kind of feel like
This is one of the things you know like a lot of you are coming to Japan checking things out like like I've had people
Message me and say hey, I went to the wired hotel that you recommended. It was really amazing that was cool
I didn't even recommend it. I just went and checked it out. I I'm glad you enjoyed it, but something like this yeah
But something like this that can actually make your time and your travels in Japan or overseas even better
I'm really glad that they sent this to me
Alright guys. I hope that this video was useful
I haven't done something like this in quite some time
And I hope that it gave you something that you can use I've it did definitely leave me a thumbs up
also, if you have any cool travel stories any
troubles that you've had because I know the first time I came to Japan I had so much adventure and so much trouble just because
I didn't have a phone or any type of connection
But that goes back to what I was saying at the beginning about the adventure how much I love it
I've also got something cool to show you guys all right
So I told you guys that I finally got this new laptop and soon after getting that my buddy sent me these stickers
and they're really neat I said that I wanted something to cover the Dell logo and check these out I
Don't know which one to put on here. What do you think let's let's take a look at them mushroom?
We have a little Mario. It is seriously so hard to choose
This might take me a while okay guys, thank you so much for joining this Tokyo Tuesday
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