Airalo Eurolink eSIM in Turkey Review (+Speedtests)

Turkey (Türkiye) is one of the largest countries in the Middle East.

But it is one of the most popular destinations in the region.

The country has everything from stunning mosques to bustling bazaars, from baking at beaches to skiing from mountains.

Therefore, it is crucial to have a stable connection in Turkey in case you suddenly need some assistance.

That is why I tried out seven travel eSIMs from various eSIM providers, such as Airalo's Eurolink (Europe) eSIM, and three Turkish SIM cards to find out which option is the best.

Be aware that Turkey has an IMEI (phone serial number) registration scheme.

You do not have to worry about this if you stay in the country for 90 days or less in a 120-day window.

If you do, you have to pay a registration tax of over 31 000 TRY (more than 1000 USD) as of 2024!

Only if you bought your phone abroad. Turkey-bought phones do not have to pay this fee. This tax was “only” about 2000 TRY (65 USD). But it has risen over the years. From 6000 TRY in January 2022 to 20 000 TRY in July 2023. The government really wants your money 🗿.

And this applies to anyone using the Turkish mobile networks directly or indirectly, such as a travel eSIM (because they roam on Turkish networks).

Enough about that – is the Airalo Eurolink eSIM worth your time and money?

Let's find out.

Original publication: 2^nd of February 2024. Last updated: 29^th of February 2024.

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Table of Contents

Airalo's List of Compatible eSIM-Supported Phones

Before I even focus on Airalo's Eurolink (Europe) eSIM (in Turkey), does your phone support Airalo eSIMs?

If you have an eSIM-compatible smartphone, it is almost guaranteed that you can use an Airalo eSIM.

While Airalo had to certify phones in the past, almost all are supported nowadays.

As of December 2023, the phones shown in the infographic below are compatible with Airalo eSIMs:

Now we can actually focus on the Eurolink eSIM (in Turkey).

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Airalo Eurolink (Europe) eSIM Prices

You can get the Airalo Eurolink (Europe) eSIM for between 5 USD (1 GB for 7 days) and 185 USD (100 GB for 180 days).

Below is an overview of how much each Airalo Eurolink eSIM costs:

1. Europe/Eurolink 1 GB eSIM for 7 days, costing 5 USD
2. Europe/Eurolink 3 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 13 USD – very popular with Phone Travel Wiz readers
3. Europe/Eurolink 5 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 20 USD – most popular with Phone Travel Wiz readers
4. Europe/Eurolink 10 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 37 USD – very popular with Phone Travel Wiz readers
5. Europe/Eurolink 50 GB eSIM for 90 days, costing 100 USD
6. Europe/Eurolink 100 GB eSIM for 180 days, costing 185 USD

Note: Phone Travel Wiz reader popularity ranking was updated in December based on data up to the 30^th of December (2023 data only).

In general, purchasing an Airalo Europe eSIM does not make sense if you plan to visit only one country (only Turkey, for example).

Mostly because of price differences (Eurolink's 10 GB eSIM costs 37 USD, while Merhaba's (Turkey – review) costs only 18 USD).

Regardless of the currency used in your country, Airalo will always charge you in USD (US Dollar).

What if you buy the 50 GB Eurolink eSIM, as I did, and realize you need another 10 GB of data close to exhausting your data allowance?

Would you need to purchase a new eSIM? Not at all.

You can top up your Airalo Eurolink eSIM for the same amount of data and prices as listed earlier.

The 10 GB top-up would still cost 37 USD as if you bought the 10 GB eSIM from the start.

And you can purchase as many top-ups as you wish/need.

That way, you will never run out of data.

A handful of Airalo eSIMs do not allow for top-ups. But that does not apply to the Eurolink eSIM – so worry not.

You can top-up on the Airalo website or its apps.

And if you buy a top-up before you have fully exhausted your data allowance, Airalo will not use your top-up yet.

As a result, the validity of the top-up will not start until you start using the top-up data (which is not the case with all travel eSIMs).

>>> Get your Airalo Eurolink eSIM now! <<<

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Airalo Eurolink (Europe) eSIM Country List

The Airalo Eurolink (Europe) eSIM can be used in 39 countries in Europe, including Turkey.

Below is a complete overview of countries where the Airalo Eurolink eSIM works:

Note: 5G NR may only be available on select supported networks and not all. Check out this guide to determine which network you must manually select to experience 5G NR speeds.

With the Airalo Eurolink eSIM, you can save a lot of money by skipping the initial SIM card costs per country you visit.

So if you plan on visiting two or more countries in Europe, getting the Airalo Euroink eSIM will be convenient AND will save you a lot of money.

>>> Get your Airalo Eurolink eSIM now! <<<

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My Airalo Eurolink eSIM in Turkey Experience

I used my Airalo Eurolink (Europe) eSIM only in Istanbul.

Travel eSIMs, including the Europe eSIM, roam on the networks of local mobile operators.

Airalo is not a mobile (network) operator (MNO), so it partners with various MNOs, which roam on local MNOs' networks.

Okay, that may sound a bit confusing – all you need to know is that you will be treated as a guest on one of the Turkish mobile networks while using another network to make this system work.

Airalo's Europe eSIM uses the Turkcell, Vodafone Turkey & Türk Telekom networks while being powered by Webbing/Orange France (so your phone, some apps, or sites you visit may claim you are on Webbing instead of Airalo – that is correct).

Interestingly, it was the only eSIM that could access the Vodafone network (all others cannot).

Moreover, I could also manually select Turkcell, even though it was not mentioned on the Eurolink product page (February 2024 – access may have been restricted between when I left Turkey and wrote this review).

So… which Turkish mobile operator is the best?

First things first… 5G NR was unavailable when I was in Turkey (November 2023).

Although the three mobile operators, Turkcell, Vodafone Turkey & Türk Telekom, were holding trials.

But none were calling their 4.5G networks (LTE-A Pro) 5G Evolution or nonsense like that (as the American mobile operators did).

Anyway, the Turkish mobile operators cover practically all populated areas of Turkey, with an availability of 98.3% or more, according to Opensignal.

However, Turkcell has the best coverage experience (7.1 on a ten-point scale). Followed by Vodafone (5.9) and Türk Telekom (5.2).

What if we look at speeds?

Turkcell was the fastest mobile operator in Q4 of 2023, with a median download speed of 56.73 Mbps, according to Speedtest/Ookla.

It was followed by Türk Telekom (30.78 Mbps) and Vodafone (20.36 Mbps).

When looking at consistency of performance, which Speedtest considers to be a download speed of at least 5 Mbps and an upload speed of over 1 Mbps, Turkcell is the most consistent (91.3% of all the results Speedtest processed).

Followed by Türk Telekom (85.7%) and Vodafone (83.7%).

While Speedtest did not focus on upload speeds in-depth in its report, Opensignal did.

And it was found that Turkcell had the fastest average upload speed (13.1 Mbps).

Ahead of Türk Telekom (11.1 Mbps) and Vodafone (8.2 Mbps).

I did speed tests with the Speedtest app throughout Istanbul (Asian and European sides).

For reference, I consider an average download speed of 25 Mbps and an average upload speed of 10 Mbps fast enough.

Why is that? A more than 25 Mbps download speed is enough to video stream content @ 4k resolution.

Social media sites that do live streaming, like Facebook Live, recommend an upload speed of at least 10 Mbps.

I have way higher standards, but not everyone demands a download speed of 500 Mbps 🤪.

In the section below, you will find various colors and formatting.

Results in dark green mean that the result was the fastest download or upload among all SIM cards and travel eSIMs I tested at that location.

Whereas results in light green were the fastest download or upload within the category (among all SIM cards OR all travel eSIMs) but not the fastest when considering the other category.

The same applies to dark red and light orange results – the slowest download or upload among all (dark red) or the slowest within a category (light orange).

All underlined results are on 5G NR, while results in italics are on 3G – results without additional formatting are on 4G/LTE.

That should clear up the colorful speed test results in the next section.

For now, let's see how the Airalo Eurolink eSIM performed in Istanbul.

>>> Get your Airalo Eurolink eSIM now! <<<

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Airalo Eurolink (Europe) eSIM in Istanbul Speed Test Results

I used my Airalo Eurolink (Europe) eSIM only in Istanbul.

Most travel eSIMs can use the networks of Turkcell and Türk Telekom.

The Eurolink eSIM had access to all three of them, with Turkcell being unexpected (not officially advertised by Airalo) and Vodafone Turkey being an outlier (all other eSIMs could not use its network).

In my case, the eSIM defaulted on Türk Telekom.

Somehow, all other eSIMs (except for Airalo's Merhaba (Turkey) eSIM (review)) were on Turkcell – Merhaba was also on Türk Telekom.

And I did not realize until I started writing the Turkey travel eSIM reviews 🗿.

Otherwise, I would have changed the networks of some eSIMs to Türk Telekom for more meaningful comparisons.

I guess I was having too much fun in Istanbul 🤪.

So, I will compare the Eurolink eSIM to Türk Telekom and all other eSIMs I used in Turkey.

Below are the results:

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