I Switched to eSIM, and I Am Full of Regret
SIM cards, The little pieces of plastic that have held your mobile subscriber information since time immemorial are on the verge of disappearing. In a bid to save space for other components, device makers are finally ditching the SIM slot, and Google is the latest to move to built-in SIM cards with the Pixel 10 series.
After avoiding eSIM for a long time, I had no choice but to take the plunge when the time came to review Google’s new phones. And boy, do I regret it.
The journey to eSIM
SIM cards have been around in one form or another since the 1990s. Back then, they were credit card-sized pieces of plastic that took up a lot of space inside the bulky phones of the time. They have become lighter over time, passing through the miniSIM, microSIM and finally nanoSIM eras. A modern nanoSIM is about the size of your little fingernail, but space is limited inside smartphones. So now there’s eSIM.
The eSIM standard was introduced in 2016, gradually becoming a secondary option in smartphones. Rather than storing your phone number on a removable card, an eSIM is a programmable, non-removable component soldered to the circuit board. This allows you to store multiple SIM cards and swap them with each other in software, and no one can remove your SIM card from the phone. They also take up half the space of a removable card, which is why OEMs have started moving away from the physical slot.
Apple was the first major smartphone maker to mandate the use of eSIM with the release of the iPhone 14, and it’s using that space. The international iPhone 17 with a SIM card slot has a smaller battery than the eSIM-only version, but the difference is only about 8%. Google only made the jump this year with the Pixel 10 series: the US models are eSIM only, but unfortunately they don’t have anything more than the international versions.
Prior to this change, Android had system-level support for downloading and transferring eSIMs. But anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and it’s extremely annoying when the eSIM goes wrong.
Please wait for help
There were times when I changed phones almost daily – such was the nature of reviewing phones back when there were a dozen coming out every month. Never, among all these countless device exchanges, have I had a problem with my SIM card. As such, I managed to avoid contacting carrier support for years.
In the three months since Google forced me to give up my physical SIM card, I’ve only needed to move my eSIM occasionally. However, my phone number remained blocked twice. Android’s built-in tools work better than before, and I can’t tell what is causing the eSIM corruption. However, carriers bear responsibility for the difficulty in resolving this problem.
The first time, I was connected to my carrier’s mobile app (T-Mobile). After a few minutes of talking with support, I was able to use the app to authenticate and get a new eSIM on the phone. It was boring but relatively painless. The second time a SIM transfer happened improperly, I wasn’t logged into the app and that was a problem.
