This is my very first Samsung Galaxy product and I absolutely love it. Still learning all the benefits but there seems to be a lot of pros and I've yet to find a con. If you are looking at phones to purchase I would strongly recommend the Samsung Galaxy series.
In Europe (at least Spain and France), voice works fine with another non-verizon sim card, but there is an annoying message like "This is not a verizon sim card". Another one, if you want to active data mobile like 4G/LTE it is necessary active roaming although you have a local sim card (and another annoying message advertising "roaming is activated". And, at the end, it is HSPA+, setup like global net. I have an T-mobile bought in USA, and is perfectly, here in Europe. NOT BUY A VERIZON DEVICE IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE IT, OUTSIDE USA. The tecnology of the net, is CDMA, only valid in USA. GSM is the net protocol in T-mobile, valid at the whole world.