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Warning: The article is an empty shill for Saily. Prominently links to HowToGeek's 'review' of Saily with affiliate code: https://saily.sjv.io/LKDQrL or https://saily.sjv.io/c/156932/2044403/25536?svlink=11737998&... when resolved.
Good catch. That being said, I used saily in multiple countries, it’s pretty useful. But they have dirty marketing strategies, like this one
Saily is a joke for pricing. I've never seen anyone beat Airalo's pricing. But they sure cornered those YouTubers!
Never heard of airalo, will check next time. I didn’t find sally to be expensive, might depend on the location?
Warning. I used Airalo on advice of a friend. It worked in some Asian countries but then in Europe the sim I bought didn't work.

Turns out it's very easy to buy sims but no way to get refund OR support via site, you have to be on WhatsApp which I am not, there is no other channel.

To make things worse, it ALWAYS makes you sign in with an emailed code, and sometimes it has issues delivering this code. every time I leave the tab for a while or restart phone to try make things work, new code, and sometimes it never arrives or arrives 10 min later. trying to solve this in the moment I basically was stuck in airport arrivals for 40 min.

eventually I bought two esims from Airalo, one for specific country and another for the whole Europe including that country hopping at least the other one connects. both never connected

I don't even care about refund. just mad about wasted time and ruined arrival.

My biggest gripe against eSIMs is that switching from one phone to another is difficult. I wish I could simply send a file to the other phone and get along with things.
Carrier locked phones haven't existed in my country for decades. I'm quite happy with eSIM- my fine motor skills don't work outside of videogames so replacing SIM was always a pain.
We never had Carrier locked phones. This seems to be a US only problem.
1. Buy physical esim on AliExpress. Even the cheapest ones have 15 profiles.

2. trip.com has the lowest prices for esims.

>1. Buy physical esim on AliExpress. Even the cheapest ones have 15 profiles.

What happens when phones go esim only, like the iPhone air already is?

I'll buy phones with regular SIM as long as they are available. I hope for the next 10 years there will be options.
I'm sorry but what in bloody hell is a "physical eSIM"?
I'm also curious about this.. its a reprogrammable physical SIM using the same standard as eSIM: https://www.9esim.com/en
Oh that’s really cool
it looks like regular sim card, but doesn't have any profiles build in. It is an adapter for phones without eSIM capability to use eSIMs.
Article feels a bit shallow. Obviously carriers will do their usual fuckery, anyone who ever dealt with one knows this. What many people probably wouldn’t expect is when you’re in a country where physical sim are dominant, you the dumb tourist will pay 10x for the privilege of esim since you’re prime target to rip off and what are you going to do about it, buy a new phone? Pay 1000x the price for roaming? Feels like notable omission and is fairly common.

I’m also surprised about there being not a word about smartwatches. I got a cellular apple watch with the idea I could leave my phone at home when doing sportsy stuff like swimming, assuming that a watch with esim support will indeed work with esim. In reality most don’t, Apple is particularly restrictive about it. You’ll probably need some shitty "companion / wearable plan" that most networks don’t even offer. There’s also extra regional compatibility on top of it to deal woth. In the end I never found a deal worth using.

That being said, I settled on esim for my main number and second esim or physical sim as needed when traveling. Having the sim slot free is neat. The biggest downside is "phone gets wrecked and you’re on another continent -> need to authenticate to switch esim to different device -> you need previous number to authenticate -> good luck", but I’m not sure wrecking a phone is more common than having it stolen so it’s probably a wash.

oh no, who could have ever seen this coming?