I have a 3 1/2 year old nexus 5x that has seen better days. I only use fi out of the country and it works perfect for me. I also have an unlocked Iphone 7 which i recently put my fi sim card in. I am torn between using the iphone or buying a new fi phone.

My questions are:

How are the data speeds using an iphone while out of the country. I am pretty sure fi won't let me use it as a hotspot but is the data essentially the same as using a made for fi phone.

On my nexus if I make an international call while in wifi I do not get charged because it defaults to voip. I am pretty sure that is not the case on the iphone. Is this correct? As a work around I can move to facetime and whatsapp correct?

Data speeds should be roughly the same whether you use the iPhone or N5X because you're connecting to the same network. How fast that is varies by network, country, etc. One exception to this is that the iPhone supports more LTE bands than the 5X does, so you may see better speeds with the iPhone if you're in a country that uses a band it has that the 5X doesn't.

No matter what phone you use, the easiest way to guarantee that your Fi calls are VoIP is simply to use the Hangouts app to make the call. Even Nexus/Pixel phones don't always route calls over IP when connected to wifi, so when you're outside the US you should just use the Hangouts app to place all calls. But you're correct that the iPhone won't even try to route calls over IP. Facetime and whatsapp will work if your recipient uses them, but to make a "regular" phone call, you can use Hangouts. Calls made with Hangouts are charged the same as calls made from the US, which is also the same rates as Google Voice (free to the US, a couple cents/min for most of the industrialized world, etc.)

Thanks for the quick reply. I put Hangouts on the iphone and it works fine. I am curious as to how it will bill me for calls that I make that incur charges. I don't see any way to buy funds like skype or add a payment method although google does have my credit card on file to bill fi to.

Assuming you're using your Fi number, it'll show up on your Fi bill. (Unless you're calling the US or Canada, in which case it's free)

Thanks so much for your help.

Where might I look for info regarding a credit or bonus applied to AirBnB.

Thanks!

Just back from New Zealand and Fiji near Savusavu. Mostly H, not much LTE in the south Island until we got to Christchurch. We were mostly northwest part of the south island for the first 5 days and signal was ok, because we were rural. Same for Franz Josef to Wanaka to CHC. We got out of CHC the day before the massacre.
Rural Rotorua would come and go. Great speed in AKL. Near Savusavu depended on where you were in relation to the cell tower, which you could see. Rain did effect signal strength, but did get occasional LTE, but mostly H. Overall pretty pleased.

Have you tried local free wifi yet? Many places offer free wifi.

Are you posting this in the Fi forum b/c Fi uese tmo in the US? Wasn't aware they used it overseas as well (and it doesn't make much sense either b/c some countries that allow wifi calling on tmo don't on Fi)

I had paused my service and went to reactivate it yesterday. Nothing worked and was on the phone with fi for an hour before they told me they just learned that tmobile was having issues. Lasted all the way through late this afternoon. From what I can conclude they may use other services but they rely on Tmobile for things like activation of new account, pausing and restarting and now I am thinking also international roaming. There is a reddit thread on this that fi posts to.

Weird - I also had paused and reactived yesterday in Japan - I tried and got an error message without being connected to anything, then turned on the airport wifi and was activated instantly. When I landed in LA 12ish hours later everything worked okay.
btw how did u contact Fi cs while u were paused?

yes, twice on Tuesday and once Wednesday morning as they told me things would be fixed Wednesday am. Wednesday afternoon I received a follow up email at 3:03 central time saying things were fixed and they were. I will say that this am my phone worked fine in wifi but didn't outside of it and that is why I called again. This is my second travel phone and I am glad it is not my main one.

Actually I think it will let you use it as a hotspot internationally. It does on a Google Fi phone, and If I recall correctly it did on an iphone 6 I was using last year.
Also If you use Straight Talk in the US and have a Google Fi phone, pm me.