The tech-savvy traveler goes nowhere with out no less than a smartphone and also a laptop. Throw in an mp3 player and an e-reader, and you’ll be toting quite a little of technologies. No judging; nowadays it is not straightforward to perform with no. But taking your gadgets across distances worth eight hours of flying or a lot more isn’t like taking exactly the same across the states border. You do not want to wind up with dead batteries after there and no strategy to recharge, and you undoubtedly never want your smartphone to go dumb when you want Google Maps to seek out that restaurant or that hotel. So here are some points to bear in mind.
Very first, a checklist! Bringing your charger and energy cables is really a provided, but should you be coming to Southeast Asia odds are great the pins won’t rather fit into energy sockets in Thailand and you really should invest in a energy adapter or three. Most hotels in Thailand worth their salt will allow you to borrow 1 for free, but it really is greatest to take your individual just in case. For excellent measure, take a couple of further batteries too: once more, there is no telling whether or not you’ll be stranded in an airport because of delayed flights or other mishaps and regardless of your most effective efforts, your smartphone, iPad or iPod Touch may possibly still run out of juice mid-flight (even though in the case of iPod Touches and iPads you will be somewhat hard-pressed to swap batteries, so appear into energy mats instead or start thinking about alternative devices).
Next: flight precautions. While the stewards will bother you about shutting down your devices, some airlines are not as well strict with this (and give in-flight WiFi to boot). Nevertheless, in the event you leave your phone’s radio on–that is, the bit that checks for cellphone towers-the battery will drain to nothing at all inside an hour or two in the plane’s takeoff; nothing at all sucks down power like a phone searching for a cell tower even though becoming completely out of range of any. How do you fix this without the need of turning your phone off? Easy: turn on airplane mode. It’ll shut down all phone signal and Bluetooth radio, but you will still be capable of connect to WiFi (if any is readily available) and you can nevertheless use your smartphone for every little thing else, irrespective of whether to e-read or play games to pass the time. To perform this, dig about inside your settings. Airplane mode should really fall beneath “Wireless network” or even a equivalent heading; this can differ from platform to platform.
Just before you touch down at Suvarnabhumi or Chiang Mai International Airport, make sure to Google up your phone’s specs. Nothing complex! Just try a search with “[your phone’s model] 900 3g” or “[your phone’s model] 850 3g,” as those will be the two bands most conveniently available in Beach Thailand. In the time of writing, 3G in Thailand is is often had by way of the carriers AIS and TrueMove, which have licenses for the 900MHz and 850 MHz bands respectively. Assuming your telephone is unlocked and GSM, meaning it includes a SIM slot, any time you arrive you may slot in an AIS or TrueMove SIM and you will be on your merry way. Do not neglect to ensure it’s a 3G SIM and don’t bother with DTac; they may be presently providing information at speeds no larger than Edge and what they do offer you will not be more affordable than their counterpart packages from AIS and TrueMove.