I've had it since sometime around October/November 2007 and here in Korea I can't use it for phone calls, but I use it for music, internet(only when near wifi hot spots), notes, games, google maps/gps and a few other things too.
When I got to Thailand and found out I could use it to talk, and on the 3G internet network I almost cried in happiness. Normally it was locked to the AT&T network but luckily a few months ago I unlocked it while trying to get it to work here in Korea. If I hadn't unlocked it, I wouldn't have been able to use it in Thailand. So for one week I got a sim card, 300 talking minutes and 20 hours of internet service for 500 baht, or $15, or 17,000w.
One baht/minute was the rate locally, but calling my girlfriend in Australia was 15 baht/minute! So a big chunk of the 300 minutes was used talking to her. My first two nights were at the Dusit Princess hotel in Bangkok so it wasn't a problem to use internet.
But when we went to David's uncle's golf resort, 3 hours away from Bangkok in Northwest Thailand, internet was scarce. This place was in the country, the boondocks, the STICKS! The only place with internet was the lobby/clubhouse which was semi-outdoors and downright exhausting to be in because of the heat, so it wasn't comfortable to be there. So at our boat house/hotel room which was like 200 feet away from the clubhouse, I remember that I used to tether my tilt to my computer and use the tilt as a modem for the internet. So I plug the tilt into my computer through usb, open the "internet sharing" program and let er rip! It worked! I was invincible! Using this method ate up a big chunk of the 20 hours of internet but throughout the week I didn't run out until the last day.
Now that was just for leisure, now I get to the part where it really saved my life!
I took about 300,000w or $255 with the intentions of using my Korean debit card to withdraw more money if needed. But when I got down to my last 500 baht/$15, I went to withdraw money and it didn't work. I tried like 5 different atms to no avail. I had my girlfriend call my bank and they said that I needed to talk to them in person before I left the country in order for atm transactions to work in other countries. SALTY! Why this ordeal couldn't be handled just as well over the phone as in person is beyond me but whatever I'm used to not understanding things about this country. Now I could have survived on this last 500 baht, because this was Friday morning and I was leaving Saturday night but the fact that I wanted to rent a motor bike, ride a jet ski and para-sail had me itching for more money.
My last resort was to call my mom and ask her to put some money in my American account and see if I could withdraw from that. I had ran out of minutes on my Thai account to call. And for some idiotic reason I didn't bring my laptop to the island so using regular skype was not an option. So I loaded up skype moblie on the tilt only to see a message saying "Skype does not allow service through mobile connections." Now why would skype MOBILE not work on a MOBILE connection is beyond me, maybe the version I was using was not up-to-date, I don't know. Then I go searching the beach and surrounding areas for a wifi connection.
I finally find a strong, reliable signal and load up skype to call my mom. Mind you the time was around 8am in Thailand, which was 8pm in the states so even if she was able to put some money in the account it was possible that I wouldn't be able to withdraw it until the next day in American time. Even if so, after talking she went to the bank and deposited some money, and about an hour later I checked the account balance online, also through the tilt and sure enough the money had been credited and was available for use!
So I dash to the nearest atm and give it a shot. I was pretty sure this card would work as I had used it in Korea a few times, but the last time I used it was around 5/6 months ago. "Enter pin" appears and I key it in, 2976 "You have entered an invalid code" showed up. I was almost 100% positive that this was the correct pin because the address to my old apartment in Columbus was 2697 and that was how I remembered the pin by switching the numbers. So I just think that I mixed it up so I try 2967..."You have entered an invalid code" shows up once again. At this point I'm stumped. I try 2976 one last time before getting rejected again and I just go have some lunch and think it over.
Then I remember that I might have had the pin saved in my tilt phone book under the contact info for the chase number. But I had re-formatted the phone so this could have been erased. Luckily the numbers were saved on the sim card and I found it! I'm not going to say what the actual pin was because some hacker is probably having a wet dream looking at this right now, but mission impossible was now a success and I was able to splurge on a few more things in Thailand.
So if you didn't feel like reading all that, here are the 3 ways the tilt saved my life:
1. I was able to use the tilt as an internet modem for my laptop when no local service was available.
2. When I didn't have my laptop, I was able to call my mom and ask her to put money in my American account because I wasn't able to withdraw money from my Korean debit card.
3. When I forgot my pin number for my American debit card, I found it listed under the contact information I had saved for chase in my phone book.
