[steven]

This is just my perspective: I am not a huge cell phone guy. With that out of the way, I did cancel my home phone. I have a nice nikon camera for taking pictures, therefore I did not need a super ultra deluxe camera on my phone. I just got the bare bones type of phone... one of those ones from "last season" or whatever. It was free when I signed up, and I've dropped it down multiple escalators and it's still working great (I wouldn't imagine an expensive phone with a nice big camera lense faring so well).

When I got here, I wanted a phone as soon as possible and all I could get is AU, even though I wanted docomo. Softbank was cheap, but I heard a lot of band things about it. I lucked it with AU because it works really well in the remote mountain areas I tend to go to a lot, whereas docomo doesn't. Softbank doesn't even work in town sometimes. At any rate, when and what kind of phone you can get when you get here depends on the company and area. I had a friend on a different island who could only get docomo when he first got here.

The people here are just as sheisty when it comes to selling phones and using confusing language to get you signed up for all kinds of crap you won't need, so you may want to bring someone who you trust and who knows Japanese with you when you get a phone if you can (and not someone who will persuade you into getting a $600 phone if it isn't what you want).

Phones also have e-mail like a computer. You get your own adress and everything. After a few months you'll get all kinds of fishy mail in Japanese. I think it's like some kind of conspiricy that the cell companies have to rack up your bill. You can also use your phone to scan QR codes-- you might wanna look those up as I don't do it too often. Sometimes you can scan one and get a discount at a restaurant, too. Even local places have done it around here. You'll get mail from them, too... but hey, I got lunch for like $3 that way.

It's funny you bring this up, because I've been in the mood to go and haggle my cell phone bill down. I don't know if I said it yet, but you can haggle in a surprising amount of places in Japan... and a lot of Japanese people don't know that.

A bit of advice: put your phone on silent for as much stuff as you can. I can't imagine anyone wanting their phone to ring everytime they get mail. If you're in class, you definately don't want that to happen! You can also use your phone for a calendar and set alarms for dates and stuff... something that caught me off guard was that the alarms will ring even if you shut your phone completely off... that was really frustrating for me! Be careful of that one!