Simify’s Global eSIM could make a lot of sense if your travel plans incorporate a lot of countries – but much less so if it’s only a handful.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to set up | Not inexpensive |
| Supports 109 international destinations | Probably not as fast as a local SIM |
| No fiddling around with SIM cards or trays | No call or text inclusions |
Score: 4/5
Ethical disclaimer:
The Simify Global eSIM used in this review was provided to me by Simify at no cost to me. This isn’t a sponsored review, my experiences, opinions and statements are 100% my own without any input from Simify at all, but I do strongly feel that ethical disclosure upfront is important.
For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
At one time, travelling abroad pretty much meant leaving your everday experiences – including online ones – behind, unless you fancied dropping into an internet café on your travels.
Yes kids, there was a whole business model built around having a line of desktop computers and CRT monitors set up for customers to access the Internet with an often rather slow connection shared between them. It wasn’t even all that long ago… but I (slightly) digress.
These days, it’s not just about the ego of your Instagram or TikTok, but instead arguably a need, whether it’s for map directions, researching places to eat, accessing interactive museum exhibits, or simply to keep in touch in a hopefully-affordable way with the folks back home while you travel.
Travel SIMs as a category have existed for a while, but there’s a big push recently to utilise the eSIM capability of smartphones for easier access to smartphone services.
That’s what Simify sells – they’re not alone in this by a very long shot – and on a recent trip overseas I had the opportunity to test out their service. Typically for most eSIM providers you’d look at a country (or perhaps regional) eSIM, but recently a number of providers (including Simify) have started to offer “Global” eSIMs that cover multiple countries over a period of time.
What I tested was Simify’s 30-day Global eSIM, which (at the time of writing) retails for $129; other time periods are available with variable pricing depending on how long you want access for, but a key part of the equation here is that they’re all offered with “unlimited” data provisions. More on this shortly.
Is the Simify Global eSIM good value?
Illustrating eSIM reviews is hard work. Too hard, which is why I’m going to use photos from my travel destinations instead. Here in Nottingham, we see a skeletal Pac-Man roaming the streets at night.
The value question is… variable, honestly.
If you looked at its $129 price and compared it to what you’d be charged for 30 days of roaming (not direct data usage without a roaming plan, that’d send you broke in no time at all) from one of Australia’s three major networks, then the comparison is highly favourable.
At the time of writing this review, both Vodafone and Optus have plans that drop as low as $5/day, but over that 30 day span that’d be $150; Telstra’s comparable postpaid global roaming deal runs $10/day so that’d be $300 for the same timeframe. Easy value calculations, those.
Where it does get more complicated is if you do your research (and you 100% should, I did note above that this was an independent review, right?) around all your available eSIM providers at the time you’re choosing to travel, and also (depending on your travel plans) what local SIM options might be open to you.
Globally that’s way too wide a field for me to cover with way too many local SIMs for a start, but to make the best value out of this kind of deal some comparison is wise.
The other catch here is precisely what “unlimited” means for different plans.
Here in Australia it’s been rather rigidly defined with telcos being whacked over the knuckles by the ACCC if they misrepresent the term (though this really was a long time ago) , but plenty of overseas destinations treat “unlimited” a little differently.
It’s not uncommon for an “unlimited” plan to have a limited quota of full-speed data and then “unlimited” slow-speed data for a period (typically within the same day) once that quota is exhausted.
Speaking from experiences, that slow-speed data might be present, but it’s rarely useful for anything you would actually want to do.
Simify’s FAQ on this point notes that:
“For unlimited eSIMs, high data use in a day may slow your speeds until the next morning.This policy resets daily, so speeds will be restored the following morning if you are affected.”
For what it’s worth, I did not hit speed limiting during my review period, including several days where I did some quite heavy data usage with video streaming and uploading my own video files to the cloud for backup purposes.
I suspect that this will vary mostly depending on the country you’re in and the deals that Simify has with its end networks in that location.
Is the Simify Global eSIM hard to set up?
I tested the Simify eSIM just outside this ex-Mill building in Stroud.
If you know why I was there… you know. (Photo: Alex Kidman)
One of the bigger selling points for any eSIM is that setup should be relatively simple; as long as you have an eSIM-capable phone it’s a software configuration matter often handled with a simple QR code and a little tweaking of your phone’s preferred data roaming settings.
Simify’s guides to this are quite well laid out for both major phone operating systems and most situations, so the actual setup post ordering really didn’t take that long.
Simify does suggest that you only activate your eSIM when you land in the country you’re travelling to, but as I was testing out a global eSIM, I figured I’d jump the gun a little and activate while waiting out at Sydney airport.
Look, it’s an Australian airport, unless I want to buy overpriced Tim Tams there’s not much else to do. Don’t judge me.
Initial registration on local networks – initially Optus in Australia, and then a variety of networks it seemed in Japan and the UK – can take a little time, though if you’ve travelled at all you’re probably familiar with that even when roaming on your own “home” SIM card.
One important aspect to bear in mind with Simify’s global eSIM is that it’s a data-only solution, with no specific capacity for calling or texting provisions.
That could be important for you depending on your communication needs; if for example your bank uses SMS as part of its authentication chain that’s not going to work through this eSIM.
Is the Simify Global eSIM fast enough?
Have you really been to Tokyo until you’ve seen Emi Sakura perform? I’m going to say… no.
Now… herein lies the other part of the value equation.
My own travel allowed me to test in three (arguably four) countries precisely; Australia (on the way out), Japan (briefly on the way there and the way back) and across England and Scotland on a sustained basis.
The very short answer to that question is that it can be, but it’s not perhaps quite as reliable as having a local SIM might be in certain circumstances.
Yes, that’s an incredibly conditional statement to make, so let me unpack it a little for you so you can grasp what my experience was, and what that might mean for you as a traveller.
To put the Simify eSIM to the test, I used Ookla’s speed test at a number of locations to get a feel for the local network conditions.
They’re always variable (we all know this, right?), but to give some comparative context, in the location where I was spending the most time (Scotland and England) I also threw a local physical SIM into a secondary phone for network testing purposes.
In my case this was Three UK (remember when Three had an Australian presence? I do… but clearly I’ve been doing this tech journalism thing a little bit too long to recall that!), but that was only really because it was easiest for me to buy a Three SIM near my hotel when I landed, and for no other particular reason. Again, the only money that changed hands there was me handing over a crisp tenner to a salesperson in a store for the SIM itself.
Simify’s claim is that their eSIMs will connect to 4G and 5G networks where available, but my experience suggested to me that 4G is a lot more common, even in areas where 5G signals are strong.
I don’t have head-to-head figures for every single tested location, mostly because while I was testing out the eSIM for review purposes, I was also (honestly) on a holiday, and I missed a few while I was busy enjoying myself. For that, you may judge me, though I hope not too harshly.
Here’s how the Simify eSIM’s data download speeds compared by destination while in the UK:
Network conditions can vary a lot, and I did find from time to time that the eSIM would stop working entirely; a quick dip in and out of airplane mode (to reset the connection) often did the trick there, but it’s hard not to look at those figures and not see that the local SIM was faster in most situations.
It was also considerably cheaper; the Three UK SIM I used was a PAYG plan SIM with 40GB of data over 30 days for £10, or around $20 AUD. No unlimited data on that plan, but it was faster basically everywhere I tested.
What about in Japan and Australia? Here I couldn’t test the Three SIM, but speeds were notably slower:
Some of whether this is “good” or “bad” for your own purposes will naturally enough depend on what you want overseas mobile coverage for. If you’re just using it for basic mapping, maybe a few simple WhatsApp messages here and there and not much else, then all of those speeds are perfectly fine.
However if you’re also thinking around matters like media streaming or higher level downloads or uploads, they’re a little more problematic.
There were some instances in cheap hotels (I was on a budget) where the Simify eSIM was distinctly the smarter choice for my YouTube binge watches, but also times where I was left wanting due to constant buffering or shaky conditions while the nearby Three UK physical SIM powered on nicely.
That did afford me something of a “safety net”, but ideally you wouldn’t want to have to spend money on two SIMs when travelling.
Simify Global eSIM: Alex’s Verdict
A former student residence, in Bristol. On quiet nights, you can catch glimpses of SPG’s ghost…
I’m not that surprised that a travel eSIM doesn’t quite match up to a physical eSIM from a direct network provider in a given country; any given travel eSIM is going to be working much like any MVNO does here in Australia, latching onto whatever parts of network access a given provider wants to sell wholesale, which is often not the entire network capacity they have to hand.
Where eSIMs like the Simify Global eSIM do have some appeal is in their simplicity; I never had to particularly think about changing any settings or popping in a fresh SIM each time I landed; just throwing my phone off Airplane mode was enough to see data flowing, often long before I’d actually gotten off the plane.
There’s some genuine utility in that, and it is nice to be able to message folks back home to let them know you’ve arrived safely, as well as check in with your own messages and (if you really must) engage in a little doomscrolling while you wait for your luggage to appear.
You’re still likely to be better off going with a direct network provider in a given country that you’re travelling to, but then that would involve buying a SIM for multiple countries, and here is where the value of this approach could be most present.
Honestly I feel like three countries isn’t quite enough for $129 to make total sense over 30 days; it’s not a terrible price but you could arguably do a little better with some regional eSIMs (Simify and its competitors offer those kinds of deals too) or for much shorter trips maybe using your existing provider’s roaming deals.
The key here is to work out your needs before you travel. If you only need light data every once in a while, it’s overkill; if you need a lot of data over a lot of countries and don’t want the fuss of any excess charges, then it could make sense for you.
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