Will A Thai-bought Mobile Phone Work In The U.k.?

[Trevor]

Where is a good place in Bangkok to buy a new cellphone, i.e. a dealer who will tell the truth about its capabilities?

Can anyone recommend a good model with the following features :

* Non-slide, non-flip body

* Excellent battery life

* Built-in speakerphone

* Work around SE Asia & in UK

Thank you.

[britmaveric]

Any GSM phone will work as long as its unlocked in most places in the world with local sim.

[GungaDin]

Search this forum for '3110'.

[PennyFarthing123]

Whether it will work in the UK depends on what bands UK and Thailand uses. If they are on different withths you must have a phone that has the capabilities of changing from one to the other. The Samsung that I bought in Australia is a tri-wire and I can use in in Thailand or USA but have to switch the bands. My husbands Samsung (different model) bought here in Thailand does not have that capability.

To check the band on our Samsung we go into Network Services and can select the band needed there.

Hope this helps

[GungaDin]

Any unlocked, Nokia tri-band phone will work anywhere except, maybe, the USA.

[sumrit]

Where is a good place in Bangkok to buy a new cellphone, i.e. a dealer who will tell the truth about its capabilities?

Can anyone recommend a good model with the following features :

* Non-slide, non-flip body

* Excellent battery life

* Built-in speakerphone

* Work around SE Asia & in UK

Thank you.

As far as I'm aware all phones sold in Thailand are unlocked so they will all work in the UK. They are

generally more expensive in Thailand than they are in the UK though. If you can get one from the UK if you

go to ,Carphone Warehouse' all their phone are sold 'unlocked' so they will all work in Thailand straight

away. As an example I bought my wife one of the latest sony/ericsson phones when we were in the UK in

May for £79-99. I've seen it on sale in Thailand for about the last month at 9,900 baht, about double the

price.

[Hoppy1]

Any unlocked, Nokia tri-band phone will work anywhere except, maybe, the USA.

The tri bands will work in the US as well but there is only two company's that have sim cards in the states T-Mobile and Cingular (On the west coast anyway) I am pretty sure it is the same out East.

[astral]

UK, Europe, Middle East, SE Asia.

All will be OK with your phone bought in Thailand.

[Trevor]

Where is a good place in Bangkok to buy a new cellphone, i.e. a dealer who will tell the truth about its capabilities?

Can anyone recommend a good model with the following features :

* Non-slide, non-flip body

* Excellent battery life

* Built-in speakerphone

* Work around SE Asia & in UK

Thank you.

As far as I'm aware all phones sold in Thailand are unlocked so they will all work in the UK. They are

generally more expensive in Thailand than they are in the UK though. If you can get one from the UK if you

go to ,Carphone Warehouse' all their phone are sold 'unlocked' so they will all work in Thailand straight

away. As an example I bought my wife one of the latest sony/ericsson phones when we were in the UK in

May for £79-99. I've seen it on sale in Thailand for about the last month at 9,900 baht, about double the

price.

Sounds like I should buy at home! Cheaper, and newer models. As a Thai resident you could have saved yourself £14 by claiming back the 17.5% VAT paid on exportation.

[OldSport]

We have English (unlocked) phones that work with Thai sims and Thai phones that work with English sims.

English phones cheaper but no Thai language, so you can't send or receive SMS in Thai, if that's important.

Edited September 15, 2008 by OldSport

[mgjackson69]

USA-spec tri-band phones are 850/1800/1900 MHz, Asia-PAC (and maybe Europe also) are 900/1800/1900 MHz.

USA uses 850 and 1900, so if you have an Asia-spec tri-band, you will only get the 1900 MHz coverage. 1900 MHz coverage in general is in the more urban areas.

Thailand uses 900, 1800, and 1900.

UK uses 900/1800, so if you buy an Asia-spec tri-band phone in Thailand, you will be good to go in UK.

Having said that, my Asia-spec Nokia tri-band works ok in USA, most places. GSM coverage in USA is not ubiquitous as most other countries; USA is still switching over from ANSI (aka CDMA)...hel_l, many places in USA are still served by AMPS (Analog Mobile Phone System), although the carriers have been given permission to decommission AMPS as of this past February. I have not used a quad-band phone in USA, so I can not speak to whether the coverage is improved over tri-band. I suspect it would be.

Quad-band is a better bet, if you can find one that fits your needs (features and budget)...then you are covered wherever you go.

And yes, *most* (not all) phones sold in Thailand are open-market...any SIM will work.

Edit: poor syntax replaced with lesser-poorer syntax

Edited September 15, 2008 by mgjackson69

[Ciaphas]

Brought a Nokia 5300 from MBK and Hp rw6282 from Pantip in Thailand work perfectly well in UK. Just brought a Nokia E71 which is an amazing phone with excellent reviews if you want a phone that does pretty much everything.

[sumrit]

We have English (unlocked) phones that work with Thai sims and Thai phones that work with English sims.

English phones cheaper but no Thai language, so you can't send or receive SMS in Thai, if that's important.

Sony Ericsson phones from the UK will receive SMS messages in Thai and for a few hundred baht the software can be upgraded to

send messages in Thai as well. I know Motorola phones won't automaticaly receive Thai text but can be upgraded to do so.

[OldSport]

We have English (unlocked) phones that work with Thai sims and Thai phones that work with English sims.

English phones cheaper but no Thai language, so you can't send or receive SMS in Thai, if that's important.

Sony Ericsson phones from the UK will receive SMS messages in Thai and for a few hundred baht the software can be upgraded to

send messages in Thai as well. I know Motorola phones won't automaticaly receive Thai text but can be upgraded to do so.

Apologies to Trevor and Thanks to Sumrit for the correction. I should not have broadly stated "You can't "

My Sony Ericsson will receive a message, show the senders number, time sent and received, but the text is displayed as a row of squares.

For me, a simple, convenient, solution was to buy the Thai phone for my wife to use in U.K. Didn't bother to check on conversions.

Not knowing if you would use it or not, Thought you might like to consider it before deciding where to buy.

Good luck choosing.