Travel Technology - Renting a mobile phone in Korea?

I posted on the Korea travel thread but after two days, no responses. Maybe someone can help here?

I know there are kiosks at the arrival terminal at Incheon airport. And I found this via google: http://www.sroaming.com/eng/Reservation/Form.asp. It appears if you book in advance the daily rental fee is discounted by 50%.

Does anyone have any experience renting a phone for 5-7 days?

I posted on the Korea travel thread but after two days, no responses. Maybe someone can help here?

I know there are kiosks at the arrival terminal at Incheon airport. And I found this via google: http://www.sroaming.com/eng/Reservation/Form.asp. It appears if you book in advance the daily rental fee is discounted by 50%.

Does anyone have any experience renting a phone for 5-7 days?

Just curious but is there a reason you want to rent rather than just buy a phone before going, is it going to be that much cheaper to rent? An unlocked Quadband phone can be had for sub $100 like the LG A165 (http://www.wirelessgalaxy.com/cellphones/lg-a165.html) or Samsung SGH-T369 (https://www.expansys-usa.com/samsung-sgh-t369-mobile-phone-unlocked-qwerty-224841/) wireless Galaxy (which I have no connection with) has a load of quadband for under $100 (http://www.wirelessgalaxy.com/products/cellphones/1978/1980)

If UK based an unlocked quadband Samsung C3050 (http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/SAMSUNG-C3050/PPAY&clearance=false) can be had for £24.95 (plus £10 top up credit).

Just curious but is there a reason you want to rent rather than just buy a phone before going, is it going to be that much cheaper to rent?

My son is visiting for less than one week and has an unlocked iPhone 3G. According to website, rental is less than $2.00 per day plus actual usage. I'm not sure Korea has prepaid service?

Anyone? :D

Just curious but is there a reason you want to rent rather than just buy a phone before going, is it going to be that much cheaper to rent? An unlocked Quadband phone can be had for sub $100 like the LG A165 (http://www.wirelessgalaxy.com/cellphones/lg-a165.html) or Samsung SGH-T369 (https://www.expansys-usa.com/samsung-sgh-t369-mobile-phone-unlocked-qwerty-224841/) wireless Galaxy (which I have no connection with) has a load of quadband for under $100 (http://www.wirelessgalaxy.com/products/cellphones/1978/1980)

If UK based an unlocked quadband Samsung C3050 (http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/SAMSUNG-C3050/PPAY&clearance=false) can be had for £24.95 (plus £10 top up credit).

Last I checked, S. Korea uses CDMA not GSM.

Last I checked, S. Korea uses CDMA not GSM.

You learn something new every day - I did not know that.

They use CDMA, but they also have 2100mhz WCDMA/HSPa.

Thanks for all the tidbits [which I already knew ;)]. But no one has answered the original question[s]....

1. renting phone upon arrival
or
2. prepaid service

Thanks for all the tidbits [which I already knew ;)]. But no one has answered the original question[s]....

1. renting phone upon arrival
or
2. prepaid service

my parents rented a phone in ICN upon arrival. they used it call friends and what not. they were quite satisfied.

i believe prepaid service may be possible but there are some hurdles. for example, one may need some kind of Korean identity (not sure here). ymmv.

There are a ton of shops with phones for visitors in Itaewon, most are about 30,000 KRW. I found a shop that gave a free phone with 30,000 KRW worth of service and a fee of around 5,000 KRW... And it has lasted for more than two months.

If you want the specific shop I can find it, but I checked the rental options and they all seemed expensive, but maybe not for a short visit.

Itaewon Station on Google Maps: http://m.google.com/u/m/zUM8Is

My son reserved a rental phone to pick up at the kiosk upon arrival. I'll mention Itaewon to him in case he visits that area.

Will report back after his visit to see how it went. Thanks for all the help.

Good idea, rent a cell phone in China and Korea can save money.

Just to close the loop, my son returned after one week. He booked the rental mobile phone ahead of time, check in and check out was easy, he didn't make many calls out and all incoming calls from us via skype were free.

Total bill was just $15.00!

Sorry it's too late to reply but I have put this info on another thread (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18451256-post2.html)...

There is prepay in Korea but it's effectively useless for short stays, due to the need for the immigration data to reach the phone company. In that case, the choices are rental or 3G/CDMA roaming, and the former is probably cheaper (of course you can get a prepaid SIM from somewhere like HK and roam with that, if you just want to be able to receive SMS!).

Sorry I missed this thread too. We did Sroaming when we were in Seoul for a week in March. I got a droid and my boyfriend just got a basic phone. We got it so we could call each other if we separated and so we'd have data/maps on the droid. We ended up not using any minutes at all, but we found the droid let us tether, so we used a lot of data. For the week (technically, 8 days), it cost $50.11 USD with the 50% reservation discount and was totally worth it. My boyfriend's simple phone was a lot less.