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We're going to the US for a road trip coast to coast on Saturday and will be needing our smartphones, at least for navigation but preferably also for Skype and to have Internet access to do research for the places we'll be going to.

Can I buy a pre-paid SIM card for my (unlocked) Samsung Galaxy S5 in a store?

I read on a forum that those aren't sold at all, that all you can get is a 'phone locked to the SIM card.

Is that true?

We can get a travel data deal with my current operator, but it's $27 for 140 MB so we'd prefer to get something with more data.

pnuts
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Mårten
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2 Answers2

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There's an entire wiki dedicated to this exact question!

http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/

I'm marking this as a community wiki-answer in case anyone wants to dig into the pretty significant amount of work required to expand this answer with rates and options available for the US. :-)

pzkpfw
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Weirdly I thought we had this question, but the only question seems to be in relation to Canada in North America...

Yes, you can. I've done so the last two years, and intend doing this again in June/July this year.

Which company you use depends on your requirements and the deals, of course, but I just went into a couple and asked what they had, and then bought one. It cost like $5 for the sim, and whatever extra I paid for my minutes/data.

I've done this with phone purchased in Canada and Australia, so it's definitely not an issue. Both were modern Android phones as well.

Mark Mayo
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