Free up your Smartphone bill with a Freebit Smartphone

Freebit in Japan has just released a 2000 Yen a month unlimited internet SIM free smartphone.

If you plan on buying a smart phone in Japan, the plans are expensive, restrictive, and it’s almost impossible to legally get your phone unlocked. Luckily expensive Smartphone deals are a thing of the past with a Freebit Smartphone.

Here is the introduction video (In Japanese)

Freebit is a relatively new company. The plans start at 2,000 Yen a month (excluding tax) for the basic plan. It includes unlimited internet access, and calls to Japanese land lines and mobiles are as follows.

Call Rates (excluding tax)

	Freebit 050	Mobile in Japan	Landline in Japan
Freebit 050	Free	21 a minute	13 yen for 3min
Freebit 090	18 for 30 sec	18 for 30 sec	18 for 30 sec

You need to pay extra for international calls, but you can quite easily download an app such as Skype of Line. The extra add ons are as follows.

All prices are excluding tax

3G Service +International services and message bank +Call waiting	¥953 +¥350 +¥250
High speed internet pack	¥250 for 100mb
¥1,260 of calls + high speed internet pack 100mb	¥500

The contract is two years and will cost about 9,000 Yen to cancel. I signed on for a plan a week ago and their service was reasonable. I don’t think they have an English service. Some of the staff do speak English, but you may need a Japanese person to help you.

I was told that my first bill will be about 8,000 yen (excluding calls) but it will then be 2,000 from the month after. You can choose to pay by credit card or bank transfer.

The call quality is the same as any regular company, but the internet isn't very fast. Browsing the net, using Facebook, Line and Skype are no problem, but videos seem to take a long time to load. The website says that speeds go up to 300kb/s depending on where you are. I’m currently getting about 30kb/s inside my home. You can purchase a high speed internet pack, but is costs 250 Yen for every 100mb. 

The phone

Freebit only sell one type of Smartphone called PandA, which seems to be custom made in China. It’s SIM free which is great if you want to use other SIM cards, or put in on a different plan once you return to your home country. It’s also dual SIM so you can insert two SIM cards at once.

It runs on Google Android which is simple and easy to use. You can download most popular apps in the Google play store without any problems.  It also has internet tethering which I think it great, and you can share the internet wireless connecting with your computer and other wireless devices.

They offered me a case with the phone, but it was going to take three weeks to arrive. They had lots of cases on　PandA is quite a rare phone so it seems like you can only buy one of their cases there. You can email them an image and they will custom make a case for you for 3,000 yen.

It’s currently still a small company so there aren't many stores in Japan. You can order online but the website is all in Japanese.

Check out the website here (in Japanese)

http://freebit.jp

You can find a Freebit store here

Nagoya Osu
〒460-0011
愛知県名古屋市中区大須3-38-9 大須商店街組合会館1F


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Fukuoka Tenshin

〒810-0001
福岡県福岡市中央区天神2-14-2 福岡証券ビル1F

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Kitakyushu Kokura

〒802-0006
福岡県北九州市小倉北区魚町3-2-10 ラティスビル1F

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