I have been staying in Las Vegas, USA since January 1 to cover CES for the first time in two years. When I come to the United States, the first thing I do is go to Best Buy, a consumer electronics retailer. In Las Vegas, I often go to Best Buy in the Boulevard Mall area, a shopping mall, about 20 minutes by car from the downtown area (strip).
The reason for going to Best Buy
Best Buy every time in Las Vegas was to secure data communication lines during staying in the United States before. It was practice to buy prepaid SIMs and prepaid mobile routers every time.
However, recently, it is increasingly cheaper to roam a smartphone containing SIM from its own country in the United States.
I use MNP to AHAMO the lines that had been laid down in Japan at the end of December, and use the free overseas roaming up to 20GB after arriving in the United States. The need to buy a prepaid SIM is no longer needed.
Balmuda Phone with AHAMO SIM is used in Las Vegas. I'm also a collector of a smartphone, so if I find something interesting, I buy it as a collection.
In addition, the date and time setting of smartphones and PCs to be brought from Hong Kong where I live is left in Hong Kong, no matter where I go around the world. Therefore, if you have a prepaid smartphone at your destination, you can buy it as a application to know local time quickly.
In the United States, MVNO's prepaid smartphones are sometimes sold for a little $ 10 and 1000 yen, so I often bought them without thinking about buying it for the time being. The smartphone sold in the prepaid is locked by SIM of each carrier.
, so after check -in this time, I immediately visited BEST BUY and hit the smartphone sales corner directly.
BEST BUY's smartphone corner has a counter of three major carriers (mainly postpaid contracts), and Apple, Google, and Samsung's mobile corner. Apart from that, there are smartphone sales corners of SIM -free companies, prepaid SIM and prepaid smartphone sales corner.
Best Buyのスマートフォン販売コーナー
It was the first BEST BUY for the first time in two years, but I felt that the SIM -free model sales area became wider.
Manufacturers are Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, OnePlus, Blu. Previously there was LG, but it seems that oneplus came in instead.
American local Blu and Nokia smartphones have a lot of low -priced products. Samsung also has a large SIM -free product around $ 100, such as low -priced A series A series.
Oneplus, which was specialized in high -end phones, has now released the low -priced model "Nord" series, and the average price of smartphones that can be purchased at SIM -free corners seems to be declining year by year. 。
Oneplus's low -priced 5G model "Nord N200"
On the other hand, if you look at the prepaid smartphone corner, there is almost no stock.
Before, major carriers and MVNOs were over 20 or 30, and it was fun to worry about which prepaid smartphone to buy. However, there are only a few products on display even if you look at the prepaid smartphone corner. The model seems to be quite old.
Prepaid smartphone corner. Looking at the BEST BUY online store for
, there are many things without stock, the types of prepaid smartphones have decreased significantly since two years ago.
SIM -free low -priced terminals have increased, and there are cases where purchasing prepaid products directly online from the career can provide services and bonuses, and the number of people who buy prepaid smartphones at mass retailers. It may be decreasing.
Sales corner of prepaid SIM. There was also a large amount of prepaid smartphones here,
This CES 2022 was announced just before the exhibition, and it was announced that the event was shortened by one day. Because I have a spare time in Las Vegas, I will continue to look at the sales status of the prepaid smartphone by going to supermarkets and career shops.