I was afraid of this, when I bought my 15PM. Traveled to Chile, and what would have been a quick transaction at the Entel store ended in disappointment. Apparently you need a Chilean ID to purchase an eSIM. Fortunately, I brought a pixel 3 I can hotspot, and takes a nano sim, but it’s something of a hassle. My only regret so far.
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Can’t you just use airalo to get ESIM? It’s more expensive but no papers required
Even more so if your phone is locked to a carrier
This is why I’m glad the 15PM in the UK still has the physical sim
Let me tell you, I loathe eSIM. I will sell my youngest child to get a nano SIM slot back. I have t-mo and they need you to call them and then they need to send a 1 time randomized PIN via SMS to read back to them… Except if you have no functioning eSIM or another line they can send it to on your account, how else would you do it? Oh, that’s right… GO TO THEIR STORE! This defeats the whole point of having any SIM to begin with. They wont even send an EMAIL of the PIN to you…
Well that sucks. But specifically that’s T-Mobile having a shitty policy. No doubt supremely frustrating though.
SIM cards feel like an extremely dated concept. You need a random bit of plastic to authenticate yourself with an online service? It’s just that the infrastructure around eSIM hasn’t really caught up to the point where they are as convenient as SIM cards, but we will get there.
I didn’t realize how much of a pita an esim would be until I had to use one (I bought a U.S. Iphone esim only). So until they are way more ubiquitous I will most likely go back to a phone that uses regular sim cards.
That sounds like a T-Mobile issue?
I got my 14 Pro thinking it would be the last iPhone with a physical SIM card slot, but nope. The iPhone 15 Pro also has it (at least in Europe)
I just purchase my sims before I travel. Very easy.
How would I go about buying a Canadian 15PMin the usa?
You can use one of those data eSIM: AirAlo for one time usage. Three Hong Kong for a HK number and cheap data roaming, valid indefinitely (a year if you don’t use it).
eSIM apps like Airalo and Holafly will sort you out. Went to Morocco a few months ago and was able to get unlimited data eSIM for about 20$ for the week I was there. And when I was done I just deleted it. I prefer that to having to buy a SIM card for a week’s stay. Airalo has an eSIM specifically for Chile
Many people are mentioning buying the non-US model. Unfortunately this comes with some trade-offs, the biggest is the lack of UWB. The non-north American model lacks some additional bands. In addition to that, there is the issue of warranty support and AppleCare.
I really dislike the face that Apple removed the sim tray for US models specifically because of issues getting service on travel. The concept of eSIM is great but the implementation so far here in the US has been generally poor.
At this point, my plan is to just take an iPhone SE with me when I travel and not even bother with trying to do an eSIM outside of the US.
Bought my iPhone in America because it was almost $400 nzd cheaper and now I’m a tiny bit regretting it because it’s been a week and a half and Vodafone NZ messed it up so badly I haven’t had service the entire time.
In NZ they still do iPhones with physical sims and I didn’t know that America was eSIM only so I had to change providers and because I wanted to keep the number I have had for the last 10 years it meant I had to transfer it to another company because mine doesn’t do eSIM.
Anyway, if you’re from a country where they do physical sims don’t buy an iPhone from a country that does eSIM only phones 🥲
Adding an eSIM via many services has been pretty easy for me. I used Orange in Europe and added it while in the US very easily, activated it once my phone connected to towers there. There appear to be quite a few options for South America as well.
In a lot of ways it was easier than physical sim and it was nice to have my local service and European service active simultaneously.
I have multiple phones I rotate between using. Some don’t have eSIMs and when I want to move service to a different phone I’d need to set up the eSIM on the different phone or go and buy a new pSIM.
Too much of a hassle for me. I won’t buy anymore iPhones till Apple returns the pSIM slot.
You might have a better chance with a small street vendor. I noticed this is the case for some countries where the small street vendor sometimes doesn’t care to check your ID even when they are required to. Not sure if this is the case in Chile.