Around the World

erict said:
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I asked if the Global and World Ready phones would work in Europe. He said that they would work ok.

I asked what he meant by "ok". He said that the phone was primarily CDMA but it had some GSM functions.

I asked him what GSM functions it was lacking. He said none.

I asked him, If it's not missing any GSM functions, then it's as good as a GSM phone, right? I'll be able to use it in Europe? ...

Correct. That's really all you need to know. Your suspicions are correct and this guy didn't know what he was talking about.

There are phones that are just GSM and not CDMA, such as AT&T phones, most of which work fine overseas

Then there are CDMA phones that only work on Verizon.

And then Verizon offers CDMA+GSM phones that do both. The best offer WCDMA 2100 for 3G roaming as well.

The nice thing about a Verizon CDMA+GSM phone is that you keep your Verizon phone number when overseas, and everything is billed to your one Verizon account. You cannot do that with a GSM-only phone.

One advantage of a gSM-only phone overseas is that you can easily put a non-Verizon SIM card in it and get much cheaper rates overseas, although you won't be reachable at your Verizon phone number. However, Verizon will unlock the SIM card slot in your Verizon CDMA+GSM phone if you ask, so that you can use cheap SIM cards even with your Verizon global phone.

As a Verizon customer who needs a phone that works overseas, you're best off getting a CDMA+GSM phone from Verizon.