Here’s What It’s Like to Rent an eSIM on an Android Phone

It took two airports to sell me on the utility of an eSIM: Newark Liberty International Airport, where I rented one and set it up on a Pixel 7 in a few minutes, and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat Airport, where I didn’t have to decide on a prepaid physical SIM card in a jet-lagged haze.

That was not the picture some international travelers painted when Apple introduced the iPhone 14 series in September without a slot for a physical SIM card. Non-technical users would struggle, and even experts would face fewer choices and possibly pay more as a result, they said.

Taking that unlocked Pixel 7 (loaned by Google PR) to MWC Barcelona allowed me to reality-check those concerns. And as it turned out, the most confusing part of the process was picking one eSIM provider from all the services available.

Just for travel to Spain, the esimdb site lists 32 eSIM providers with 426 prepaid plans(Opens in a new window). Playing with that site’s search filters—for example, showing only plans with a set range of data and covering a set number of days—didn’t narrow my choices that much.

Instead, I decided based on a longtime reader’s endorsement of Airalo(Opens in a new window) after using that data-only eSIM provider in Italy last year. It helped that I could apply a referral code from my reader to chop the cost of a 2GB, 15-day plan(Opens in a new window) from $6.50 to $3.50. 

That was more than T-Mobile’s free price for slow international roaming(Opens in a new window) (now 5G in Germany and 10 other central European countries), but below the day-pass rates for high-speed international data at T-Mobile(Opens in a new window) ($5) and AT&T(Opens in a new window) and Verizon(Opens in a new window) ($10) in Spain and most other countries.

Setting Up an Airalo eSIM

Opening an account at Airalo and paying for that plan took all of four minutes. Airalo’s site asked for a first name (a fine-print notice explained that “Know Your Customer” identity-verification regulations were not an issue in this market(Opens in a new window)) and an email address. After setting a password and confirming my account with a verification code sent to that email, I picked that 2GB plan and paid for it by credit card. 

(Credit: Rob Pegoraro)

Putting this eSIM on the Pixel 7 took much less work than Airalo’s Android instructions(Opens in a new window) suggested might be necessary. Scanning the QR code generated on Airalo’s site with the Pixel 7’s camera yielded a “Use airalo?” dialog on the phone. Tapping its “Download” button had it showing in Android’s SIMs settings page (under the Settings app’s Network & Internet category), and ready to activate in Spain.

The next day, I got off the plane in Barcelona, took the Pixel 7 out of airplane mode, flipped over to the Settings app’s SIMs screen, tapped “Airalo,” and then moved a slider control to activate the eSIM. I needed one more minute to realize that I had to enable data roaming, also under Network & Internet, and then the phone was online with an LTE—not 5G—connection.

Then I checked how things might have gone had I needed a prepaid SIM in the airport. One electronics store didn’t sell them, while a Vodafone store offered a €10 Orange SIM with 25GB of data—an excellent price per gig, but far more data than I’d need for the next six days. I realized how I appreciated not having to do math after maybe four hours of sleep in the sky.

Like a Normal Phone (But No 5G)

Instead, with Airalo active, it was like I had a normal phone, just not on 5G. That’s a detail I would have noticed the day before if I’d scrolled down the order page to see a line below the “Additional Information” heading, which identified Airalo’s partner on this plan as the Telefónica subsidiary Movistar, limited to LTE.

“For some countries, we can only offer a 3G connection, while others may have 4G and 5G capability,” Airalo publicist Alisha Whitley told me in an email. “We currently have 10 countries with 5G connectivity, and the rest are 4G and below.”

The carrier lists about 200 countries in which it sells service, so you should expect a 4G experience. Which in this case was fine: Even on MWC’s excellent convention-center Wi-Fi, I wasn’t doing anything too bandwidth-intensive.

Four tests with the Speedtest app from Ookla (owned by PCMag’s parent firm Ziff Davis) found average download speeds of 5.36Mbps, with uploads faster at 15.21Mbps. 

I did manage to exhaust the 2GB of data anyway, mainly by leaning too hard on the Pixel 7’s mobile-hotspot function: I burned up a full 1.11GB on that, followed by 504MB on Chrome and 176MB on Speedtest. Normal people don’t run speed-test apps multiple times a day or lean on a wireless connection to keep a laptop active on a work trip, so don’t take those numbers too seriously.

Airalo sent one “Your data’s running low” email when I had 25% of my allotment left, then another with 10% left. I did not get a third email when I exhausted my data. I could have topped up my account, but I was on my last night in Barcelona, and I also had my Pixel 5a using T-Mobile’s free but slow international roaming, so I didn’t bother.

Whitley said that Airalo’s app, installed by “the vast majority” of customers, provides real-time data-usage metrics. I had not bothered to install it because I was trying to get service set up in as few steps as possible.

After landing in the States, tapping the slider next to Airalo’s line in the SIM settings screen yielded a “Turn off airalo?” dialog. Tapping Yes took me back to the Network & Internet screen, from where I could tap SIMs > T-Mobile > Use SIM to return to the free-trial T-Mobile eSIM(Opens in a new window) I’d put on this phone before the trip. 

Then notifications resumed for the random calls and texts that had been flooding into the number T-Mobile had assigned my test phone.

The case for using an eSIM provider like Airalo would have been even stronger if I hadn’t had T-Mobile on that phone or on my own Pixel 5a, where the worst-case scenario would have been slow but no-charge roaming that I’ve found to be good enough for leisure travel. At AT&T and Verizon, however, those $10 daily rates look more like a tax on it. 

Opting for an eSIM service like Airalo will beat those day-pass costs any day–and quickly save enough money to justify whatever financial penalty you might pay to get an unlocked phone that isn’t chained to one carrier’s network.