Buying a phone from America

lil.smartie

T-Mobile USA phones generally are fine in the UK. Sprint & Verizon are CDMA but many are 'global phones' and have a sim slot too, I have a Verizon Blackberry Storm2 and can use ATT (no 3G) & T-Mobile (with 3G) in the US and use Orange in the UK no problem with 3G & I have my blackberry data plan with them too.
Find a store, I bought a T-mobile Optimus direct from a T-mobile retail store & they will have 'off contract' prices you can sometimes haggle a bit off or a free cover...

Kate

gjchester

diamonds wrote: »

They can cease at a iphone at customs if you cant prove or cant pay the VAT, and a call to Apple to see where/network purchased and activated after a fax from HMCR to validate authority is all it takes. oh and a jobsworth.

Doesn't that just negate your comments about travelling with reciepts? Reciepts or not is irrelevent if they stop you.

Your right it would be a jobsworth that would do it but then agian they are more likely to just fine and charge you and let you do the legwork

Tony5101

I expect that Customs will be being especially vigilant around the latest iBling launch dates.
Queue - the next round of threads..."bought phone abroad - stung for Duty - what can I do?"

redux

I wouldn't bother with a phone from USA.

They aren't necessarily any cheaper, you'll need another charger, warranty issues may be awkward, and some of the frequency bands differ.

Even if you get a phone which has all 4 2g bands, you may end up with different 3g bands. A US supplied phone will quite probably not have 3g at 900 MHz which is being gradually rolled out here, but at 850 MHz and/or 1900 MHz instead

mrcamp

pretty much all the GSM phones sold in the US these days are quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900), so you do not need to worry about that part. You do need to make sure that the 3G bands are compatible with that used in Europe (2100). A lot of phones such as the Iphone, and HTC phones,are 3G 850/1900/2100. You can get sim free phones from Amazon, buy.com, etc. It will be shipped to a US address of course.

Aiming_High

Bear in mind most iPhones from the USA are locked and WILL NOT be unlocked by the network. Eg an iPhone on AT&T will always be on that network and unlocked for NO reason.