EG Prepaid SIM Card Review

How’s everyone doing?

Good I hope. Anyways, if you've read my post How to Get Around Seoul you probably noticed that in one of the steps I recommended getting a prepaid SIM card or any type of data service while in Seoul. Odds are that if you bring your own phone to Seoul your home carrier won’t have service in Korea, so you definitely will need some kind of service from a local company. Yes, while there is a wide availability of free Wi-Fi in coffee shops and restaurants, you are unlikely to be able to receive Wi-Fi while walking in the city or in the metro. That’s likely when, if you’re like me and get lost, you’ll need data most.

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When in Seoul you’ll have a wide range of options for data, but today I’ll cover the EG prepaid SIM card offered by Evergreen Mobile. Primarily because that’s the one I went with and as such the one I know most about.

I’ll start by covering the good parts of both the card and the service. One of the good things about the card is that you can get it in a wide variety of locations, ranging from GS25 convenience store all over Seoul, Seoul Station, to their branch office in Myeongdong, and also have it delivered to your dorm or residence. Obtaining it is also straightforward; if you buy it a convenience store you pay for it there and activate it online. Me, personally, I bought it at their office in Myeongdong, where they installed it, activated it, and loaded it all on the spot.  Be advised, though, that you must have your passport with you, or a copy of it, in order to activate the card.

I also found the prices for both the card and data options to be reasonable. The price for a regular SIM card, not the nano required by Apple phones, I believe is about 5,000 won and 1 GB of data to be around 15,000 won. When I bought it the branch office, I paid 50,000 won but 45,000 of that was put on the card as credit for data. Furthermore, if you do buy the data allowance of 500 MB and up, you get free access to Olleh Wi-Fi hot spots, and trust me these things are everywhere. You’ll rarely have to use your actual data instead of the Olleh hot spots, so I believe 1 GB of data will be more than enough to last you an entire month (provided you don’t go crazy with data usage).

The final positive thing about this SIM card is that coverage is, for the most part, excellent. I was always able to get a least 3G coverage just about anywhere I went, with the exception of the underground metro lines. However, there are plenty of Olleh hot spots inside them, so this was a non-issue.

Now on the other side of the spectrum comes the bad aspects about Evergreen's prepaid SIM. The one thing I did not like about this card is that, almost as soon as you sign up to this service, you begin to receive texts from marketers about offers, sales, and what have you. Of course, these are all in Korean so unless you know the language, they’re just so much spam. This is further aggravated by the fact that you also receive calls from Korean telemarketers every so often to your Korean phone number. Now, this may be something unique to this SIM card, or something done by all prepaid SIM card providers in Korea, I’m just not sure. I just wanted to make sure you knew this before you got it.

Overall, the prepaid SIM offered by Evergreen is a good choice as far as availability, price, and coverage. That is if you don’t mind the promotional texts and the odd telemarketer. For me it was a minor irritation at worst. For you, well, that is for you to decide.

If you want to learn more, see EG SIM.