Welcome to greentexts.

Kinda handy during first time setup though. Can easily be 30 system apps updating, plus all the shit you might be grabbing from previous installs.

I’ve got a physical code generator as backup like any person worried about their phone breaking should have.

Now I can’t answer for other regions, but with my carrier here in Norway I can sign in to their website and authenticate with the government ID system (bankid) and generate a new esim and get the QR code. Takes about a minute total.

I’m personally more for physical sim cards as swapping it into a new phone or swapping in a traveler datasim etc is just something I prefer to have physically.

That being said, I use esim for my phone number, and then swap in travel sims for data with my physical sim slot, works really well when you travel a lot.

You get a QR code for the new sim, go into the eSIM manager on the phone, and scan it

Other way around.