Diana has joined the dark side.

Diana bought her iPhone 3G today.  Softbank is the only carrier in Japan that sells the iPhone.  It seems that every expat that we’ve met uses an iPhone.  And every Japanese tends to use a RAZR like flip phone, in any possibly color of bling that you want.  The other Japanese phones look a little complex and don’t have good English modes, so I pushed Diana to get the iPhone.  It’ll be easier since we have the GPS and good Google Map support.  When I get a cell phone, I’ll probably geek out and try one of those cheap Japanese flip phones.

Buying a phone in Japan and getting a plan in Japan is similar to the US but also a bit pricier.  I only know Softbank phone plans, but I’ll assume that all other carriers are similar.  You need a Japan alien registration card if you’re not a Japan citizen.  You need to show your passport.  You are required to pay with a credit card.  Softbank stores won’t let you use a US credit card, but BIC Camera (a local electronics mega-retailer) will =).   If you can’t sign a 26 month contract, it’s really expensive.  When I get my work visa (and therefore alien reg card), I won’t have enough visa duration to be allowed to get the 26 month plan, so I’ll be paying out the nose when I get a cell phone.

So the phones…  You can get free phones, which 90% are flip phones made by Japan vendors.  There’s other brands like Samsung, HTC Touch, Nokia, but they’re expensive and you have to pay for the phone.  There’s a fancy full touch screen Samsung out there right now, which is the same price as the iPhone.  When you buy the phone and get the 26 month contract, the phone costs you about 460,000 Yen (more than $460).  If you can’t get the 26 month contract, then the iPhone 3G will cost you 806,000 Yen (> $806 dollars).  When you buy a phone, you can chose 2 options, pay as you go, the standard payment is the $806 / 26 months.  You’re discounted back exactly enough to make the monthly payment look like $460 /26.  If you cancel the contract early, you lose the discount and the fee is however much months is left at the end of your contract.

The calling plans are slightly complex.  But I’ll summarize.  Every incoming call is free always free, that’s the telecom style in Japan.  Every outgoing call costs you 21 yen a minute (if paying for basic “White” plan of about $10 a month).  If you pay another $10 a month for the “Double White” plan, then the per minute cost is 10.5 Yen a minute.  Internet starts around $14/month and you get charged more by the # of packets you download.  $45 is the unlimited internet cost.  That’s pretty much a requirement for the iPhone as it uses the internet quite heavily.  There’s some other insurance crap that’s $5 – $10 for the phone.  Calls between Softbank phones are free, except between 9pm – 1am where it’s a fixed cost of 21 yen a minute.  So basically if you get a relatively standard iPhone equiv plan in Japan, it’ll cost you $70 – $90 a month depending on how much you call.

In Japan, phones can watch TV using something called 1-seg technology.  That’s not available on the iPhone and it takes a more expensive Japanese phone to get the feature.  JP phones can basically DVR your shows from the 1-seg TV, and also change language tracks if the show is English/Japanese.  But there’s DRM and you can’t transfer the video elsewhere.

Ok, now to some pics.  We bought the phone from Bic Camera since they seem to ignore the requirement for a JP credit card.  Diana is getting a credit card but that would take a while to come in, and we don’t have a fixed apt address yet…  The contracts were all in Japanese, so we had one of the show girls, who spoke english, translate everything when we were with the sales person.  The girl was pretty cute, I’d prolly hook Andrew up with her if he was about to come out (hint hint) haha.

Diana wanted a silicon case, so we picked up a Japan branded silicon case.  It comes with the protective film.  I made the store clerk put it on =).  Japanese people are just so nice!