iPhone 12 Pros and Cons of e-sims

[topbin]

Hey,

I currently have 2 phones, one iPhone 12 (personal), and one iPhone 6 (work) and was thinking of ditching the work phone to move to dual sims on the 12.

As far as I've read up on I can see the following pros and cons for me!:

Pros

• Only have to carry one phone around
• Obviously the iPhone 6 is very old so really really slow, almost unmanageable, would get speed on work messages/teams calls etc (work are unwilling to upgrade unless it's broken, my argument that it's still on iOS12 hasn't counted as 'broken'!)
• Probably only a pro people on this forum would see(!) but 'something new to play with' having 2 sims on one phone, setting up people as work/personal etc. on contacts

Cons

• Is it difficult to move over to an e-sim?
• If I lose/break this phone I obviously have no backup phone at all on me, but this I guess is a problem no matter what, just doubles for me
• Moving/upgrading phones, sounds like it's much more of a hassle than just swapping out a physical sim
• Currently doesn't have 5G on dual sim - but think this is sorted with 14.5 in a couple of weeks (5G is pretty good for me, near the house and just away from the wifi was 3G rather than 4G but now is 5G so a big bonus, similarly for around town the days I am in the office)
• It doesn't auto-switch to the better signal, so would have to manually do this if I wanted to move networks to see which is getting better signal

Does anyone with any experience of it have anything else I should consider? I'm probably undecided at the moment but the 'new toy' element is driving me towards maybe giving it a go 😆

 

[mystery hill]

Is it difficult to move over to an e-sim?

Depends on your carrier.

If I lose/break this phone I obviously have no backup phone at all on me

That's not going to happen everyday. You can wear an Apple Watch if you need a backup device.

Moving/upgrading phones, sounds like it's much more of a hassle than just swapping out a physical sim

This again depends on your carrier. It can be as easy as signing in to their app on your new phone and clicking download eSIM. With iOS 13.1 and later, some carriers support transferring your eSIM during Quick Start.

Currently doesn't have 5G on dual sim

iOS 14.5 will solve this. It should be released soon.

It doesn't auto-switch to the better signal, so would have to manually do this if I wanted to move networks to see which is getting better signal

Won't you have the same problem with your current setup?

 

[topbin]

Cheers mystery hill

Glad to hear that people have found that moving across to e-sim hasn't been a problem, that's been a nagging doubt!

Yeah I think I'm pro it at the moment.

 

[JPack]

Privacy is the main issue. If you want to use eSIM, you must provide the carrier with personal info. That's why prepaid SIMs remain standard around the world.

 

[maerz001]

Privacy is the main issue. If you want to use eSIM, you must provide the carrier with personal info. That's why prepaid SIMs remain standard around the world.

That was a couple of years ago. Many countries also switched that for prepaid thanks to „war on terror“

 

[HDFan]

That's why prepaid SIMs remain standard around the world.

Overall, Verizon had about 120.3 million wireless connections, across consumer postpaid and prepaid, and business. Of those only around 4 million are prepaid subscribers.

Verizon adds 283K postpaid phone subs in Q3, equipment revenue drops

Verizon on Wednesday reported third quarter results, including 283,000 net postpaid phone additions as wireless service revenues ticked up slightly. | Stores are back with new measures in place like appointment scheduling, curbside pickup, and touchless retail, and consumer foot traffic hasn’t...

www.fiercewireless.com

 

[Kingofclouds]

e-sims are fine until you want to move/change devices and then its not as straight forward as popping out a sim. Ive been using dual sim s for a few years albeit with the Chinese iPhones for physical duals. I did try e-sim on the new SE last year and it was fine, but as I said, not so simple to switch about.

There also used to be some limitations when roaming with some carriers - not sure if this is important to you? Thats probably not an issue now however.

 

[Vegas33139]

Moved to an Esim on my IP11PM. I'm with Vodafone, UK. The swap from a conventional sim to an Esim couldn't have been easier. I recently upgraded to an IP12PM so I had to move my Esim to this device. It literally took about 30 seconds.

I scanned the email from Vodafone with the Esim QR code attached and voila! up and running almost instantly on my new IP12PM.

 

[rui no onna]

e-sims are fine until you want to move/change devices and then its not as straight forward as popping out a sim. Ive been using dual sim s for a few years albeit with the Chinese iPhones for physical duals. I did try e-sim on the new SE last year and it was fine, but as I said, not so simple to switch about.

I really wish Apple had just gone dual physical Nano-SIM across the board. I noticed the SIM card tray they use on newer iPhones are thick enough to accommodate dual Nano-SIMs anyway.

This is much more straightforward as well as having better support across carriers around the globe. In some countries, the local carriers only allows eSIM for postpaid customers.

 

[lordhamster]

Several big pros of eSim for me. I use eSim in a Dual-sim config though.

• I can take advantage of two networks at once. I've done this with T-Mobile or FI + Visible to have T-mo & verizon coverage
• I can buy cheap international sims from places like Airalo
• I can use a local sim when international (if we ever get to travel again) and take wifi calls from my primary line via the data of the international sim.