Yoodo Review – The Customizable Telco Plan

Yoodo Review – January 2020

Finally, after drafting for months, I present you my honest Yoodo review.

Just in case, if you don’t know Yoodo, it is the first telecommunications provider in Malaysia that allow users to custom their own mobile plan.

I have been using Yoodo since August 2019 but I knew Yoodo longer than that. To be honest, the pricing of Yoodo is too hard to ignore.

I started to consider changing my telco it’s because of my job, that required high number of phone calls every week. My original mobile plan was only 50 minutes for phone calls which is really not sufficient.

When I was researching the mobile plan in the market, I could not find any mobile plan that fits my criteria:
1. Minimum Data – 3GB
2. More than 300 minutes phone calls
3. Price range around RM30 – RM50
4. Stable line connection in my area
They are either overbudget or does not have strong connection in my area.

In the end, I go with Yoodo. My plan was only RM37 for 5GB and 2000 minutes phone calls. (Now with their Double Special promotion, you get double for Data quota. As example, for RM25, this promotion will get you 10GB instead of 5GB)

Let’s go into the Yoodo review
1. Coverage area & Connection
2. Price & Customize Plan
3. Roaming
4. Customer Services
5. Switching to Yoodo

Coverage area & Connection

Yoodo powered by Celcom, so it’s coverage runs on Celcom Network too. As per their website:

You may check their coverage on Celcom Website.

For using more than one year now, I think the coverage was pretty good. (From my experience, the connections are stable most of the time.) Nothing much to say about their coverage and connections.

Price & Customize Plan

Yoodo are transparent on their pricing. Even if you does not get a Sim, you can always check out their price on their website. Just select what you want, it will show you the price of the plan. The pricing is quite reasonable.
(Check out their Double Special Promo)

Before this they only have High-Speed, now it’s got even better with unlimited data plan. (But no comment on the unlimited plan, as I haven’t tried before)

Other than that, they do have a lot of add-ons that you can select based on your needs.

If you use your phone data for YouTube or Netflix, it will be worth it to add on, as this way you can save more on your Data.

To me, the way Yoodo let user to customize their plan is flexible enough, you just pay for what you want, and get rid of those you don’t. (This kinda reminds me of AirAsia, as an economic airlines, they offer the basics only and passengers can add on what they want extras)

So far, the plan and pricing are (still) attractive, consider their coverage and stability for most of the time.

Roaming

Yoodo’s roaming service it’s a bit different from what I used to, they are in the form of pass. It’s known as Roam Like Home. Different price for different country, it start from RM5, RM10 and RM20 per day.

There’s a few options for Roaming Pass, One-Day pass, 3-days pass and 7-days pass. It is valid according to hours. (Example, one-day pass is valid for 24 hours).

From my experience, it activates on your first usage (Data/ Voice/ SMS) when you are overseas and the pass will expired 30 days after the purchase date.

There’s a few things to be in mind:

1. Your roaming pass let you use your subscribed plan as usual, so the usage limit will according to your plan. Roaming pass are not separate plan, they are just pass.

2. Voice call or SMS limit are only available to call or send SMS to Malaysia number. According to what I get from Customer Service, if the Malaysia number you contacting is outside Malaysia, they need to be roaming too.

3. You need get additional IDD if you want to call or SMS to overseas number. For example, if you are in Thailand, you want to call your hotel Thailand number, you need to get the IDD. Your roaming pass does not allow you to call or SMS overseas number.

4. You need to switch your APN to use Roaming overseas. For better Roaming experience, always ensure you know how to set up your APN before you cross the boarder. (Or else you will ended like me, in Thailand, searching for Wi-Fi everywhere to contact Customer Service, because I didn’t realize I need to switch the APN)

5. There’s no auto-renewal for roaming, so better pay attention to your roaming pass, or else, again, you might need to find Wi-Fi to renew your pass. (Believe me, you don’t want this to happen.) Yoodo will send you reminder though.

Above are just to share what I experienced. Please contact the Yoodo customer service if you have any queries.

I only tried to use Roaming pass once. So far, from one-day pass experience, it’s good. Nothing to complaint. As I only needed it for one day, spending RM10 for roaming pass is better than buying a Thailand sim. (It used to be RM10 for Thailand, but as I check, when I’m writing this post, Thailand Roaming one-day pass is RM5 now.)

Customer Service

Yoodo doesn’t seems to have hotline or contact number. Their customer service are through live chat, which available on 9a.m. to 9p.m. for Monday to Friday and 9a.m. to 6p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

You can find their live chat at the bottom of their Help section, no matter is the website or the apps. Click on the live chat box, the live chat will pop up.

So far, their Customer Service is quite professional. They can answer to each and every question from me. And, believe me, I asked a lots of questions, especially about Roaming. They cleared my queries. Thumbs up.

Switching to Yoodo

I spent around one week to switch from my previous Telco to Yoodo, but this is not the normal case. I faced some issues, so it took longer than it should.

Lesson learnt:
1. Make sure your existing Telco Account Owner name is the same with your Yoodo Account Owner name. Or, it will failed to switch.
2. Clear your outstanding amount with your existing Telco first before you proceed to switch.

Conclusion

Overall, Yoodo do provide good value, considering it’s performance to it’s pricing.

However, it might not suits everyone, as we all have different needs.

I think it’s more suitable for students or individuals that does not have high requirements or usage. It could be a nice second sim or backup sim as well as no contract binding.

As for people that travel often or with heavy usage, there’s probably better plans out there.

All image are screenshots from Yoodo and Celcom Website.