Buying A Mobile

[taxi99]

I live in australia (but on hols in los) and have an old cdma phone which I hardly use. cdma is being phased out next year.

I thought I might pick one up here in bangers

A. are mobiles really cheap here

B. will they work in aust which has gsm, 3g and now NextG

C. and it is only a matter of switching sims?

Thks Laurenzo

[peter991]

Hi there taxi99. To answer your questions:

1. NO - Mobile phones are NOT cheaper in Thailand than they are in Australia.

2. YES - They will work in Australia. The only phones I have seen in Thailand are GSM ones. I think there is a 3 network in Thailand - not sure, but it will only be in major centres (same as Australia). With the roll-out of NextG and 3G phones in Australia - you are better off buying one off eBay in Australia. If you buy a phone in Thailand, it will come with a Thai wall charger - which you can't plug into an Aussie power point. You will need an adapter, or spend $10 to $20 to replace the wall charger.

3. YES - you can swap Thai/Aussie (Telstra / Optus / Vodaphone) SIM cards at random as Thai mobiles don't come locked to a particular carrier.

Peter

[naka]

If you buy one here you will get a messy Thai keypad which

you probably do not want.

If you mainly use it in Oz then buy it there.

Naka.

[taxi99]

Thanks for that, telstra will give me one, no doubt something cheap..