Roamer is an Android app that wants to make it easy for people to phone home when traveling abroad. It does so whilst keeping your home number as it is, and users can either call using a strong WiFi network or using their regular cellular network, although prices do differ from each other quite a bit there. Roamer works in 200 international countries throughout Europe, North America, India and even Australia. Swapping calls from WiFi to cellular on the fly is possible, and if you’re able to, you can match Roamer to a local SIM card to save even more money. With clear and concise rates that are easy to work out from within the app itself, users can use Roamer to save on calls and messages no matter where they are. Free credit is available for referrals and so on, and it’s easy to top up your account from within the app. Let’s take a closer look, shall we.
First thing’s first, you’ll need to download Roamer from the Play Store to get started. Users are then introduced to how the app can help.
Getting the app working is nice and simple, and will require you to use your default SIM number you’re currently using, this has to be the number in your smartphone right now however, as a code will be sent to your device for verification.
Once you have the code all set up on your device, you can access the side menu which neatly displays how much credit you have and has quick links to main parts of the app.
If you want to see about getting free credit, and you do because the app gives you just €0.25 in my experience to start with, you can take advantage of some nice referral offers.
To find out just how much a call is going to cost you, users can use the ‘Rates’ feature from the main menu and it’s all plain sailing from there, just choose the country you want call from the exhaustive list:
I thought I’d test out the app by calling our International Editor from Croatia, so I worked out how much this would cost me:
On the face things, this didn’t seem that cheap to me, but when I looked at my UK network’s rates it would have cost more than twice these rates per minute to ring Croatia. My next step was, unsurprisingly, to test out the quality of the network and call to my friend in Croatia. Using the dialing pad all you need to do is to input either 0038 or hold the 0 for a + and input 38 for Croatia or whatever else for other countries.
When in the call, things sounded brilliant, we were both surprised by how good each of us sounded, so that was a definite plus, and things worked really well here.
An interesting feature of Roamer is the ability to purchase a local SIM card for certain countries before you leave, saving you even more money.
I was honestly quite surprised that this worked as well as it did after trying it out, not because the app looks anything but genuine, but because I’ve tried others and they’ve been half-baked, lanky solutions. Roamer however, is polished, professional and just works without any hassle. The added benefit – besides sticking it to your carrier and saving cash – is that you can keep your number no matter where you are in the world. This is great for businessmen and businesswomen because their clients will be relieved to see that contact appear as normal, and i allows people to sort things out without anything else getting in the way. For personal users, like myself, the elderly and those weary not to answer unknown numbers won’t have a problem and your friends will still know who’s calling without any fuss.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – There are no delays of any sort here, and everything works just fine, it’s super-easy to use as well.
- Features (5/5) – Save oodles of cash and keep your number wherever you might be on our little planet? This is a no-brainer for many people, and those in business or on holiday for long periods will really enjoy using Roamer.
- Theme (4/5) – The app is good looking and Roamer’s interface is easily navigated and behaves in a familiar fashion for many users.
- Overall (4.5/5) – As cheap calling apps go, Roamer is one of the few that actually does what it says it does in good taste and in good fashion. The call quality is excellent, it connects calls quickly and the fact that you can keep your number makes this all seem like some sort of black magic above all.
Pros
- Free to download and use, with the opportunity to earn free credit by inviting friends and family members to Roamer.
- Allows users to keep their existing number, great for those that have some sort of business to run or spend a lot of time talking to elderly and weary relatives back home.
- Easily lays out rates and charges without any hassle or roadblocks all from within the app.
- In some countries, people can save even more by using a prepaid SIM card as well.
Cons
- Doesn’t offer a huge amount of free credit out of the box, and in-app purchases via Google Play would be nice to see.
- Homescreen widget with credit reminder or something similar could be a nice option.
Roamer is a great app and for those that spend a lot of their time overseas on business trips or travelling for the pure thrill of it offers a way to come back down to earth and connect family and friends with little hassle. The fact that you can save all this cash is great, but being able to keep your number should not be underestimated and we’re sure there are loads users that see this as the best feature, for good reason.