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Mysteries of foreign-purchased iPhones

T

tfitzsimons

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 10, 2008
50
11
Hi all,
I live in Beirut and plan to buy a factory unlocked iPhone 5 in Amsterdam next week. My iPhone 4S (used) is still worth quite a bit for resale here in Lebanon, so I am selling that and upgrading to the new phone for a comparatively small fee.

I have two questions:

1. What US networks will the global unlocked iPhone 5 (purchased in Holland) work on? Sprint/Verizon? AT&T? I understand it runs on both CDMA and GSM, but uses specific LTE bands that would basically limit my choice when I move back to the US. I am not worried about which carrier I have to choose, since they are all pretty good where I will be living. I tried to figure it out but ended up mostly confused.

2. A more obscure question.. Does anyone know if the Amsterdam Apple Store will give a VAT refund form? There is 21% sales tax in Holland and obviously I will only buy one if I do not have to pay that.

Thanks for help on these obscure questions
 
Tea-Aholic

Tea-Aholic

macrumors 6502
Dec 8, 2011
438
155
Melbourne, Australia
tfitzsimons said:
1. What US networks will the global unlocked iPhone 5 (purchased in Holland) work on? Sprint/Verizon? AT&T? I understand it runs on both CDMA and GSM, but uses specific LTE bands that would basically limit my choice when I move back to the US. I am not worried about which carrier I have to choose, since they are all pretty good where I will be living. I tried to figure it out but ended up mostly confused.
Click to expand...

The international unlocked version is model A1429 (GSM).

It will only work on GSM networks in the US (AT&T). Verizon will not likely activate it for you. It will NOT work on LTE networks because it misses AWS and 700b band in the A1428 model.

If you NEED LTE, then get one in the US.

2. A more obscure question.. Does anyone know if the Amsterdam Apple Store will give a VAT refund form? There is 21% sales tax in Holland and obviously I will only buy one if I do not have to pay that.

Thanks for help on these obscure questions
Click to expand...

I live in Australia, but Apple does give me a tax invoice so I can claim the tax at the airport. Just go to the Apple Store and ask them.
 
V

vbtwo31984

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2010
109
0
You will only be able to use it on AT&T and T-Mobile. With T-Mobile you'll only get HSPA+ in areas where they refarmed their network, otherwise you'll be stuck with Edge. You'll get HSPA+ with AT&T. You will not get any LTE. It will not work with Verizon or Sprint.
 
T

tfitzsimons

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 10, 2008
50
11
There's no chance I could convince Verizon to activate a foreign bought, unlocked phone?

This makes it look as if model A1429 can work for both GSM and CDMA... Is it just one or the other based on the type of SIM inserted?

http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

It seems that vbtwo is confusing the unlocked US phone with the unlocked foreign phone... (all Netherlands iPhones are sold unlocked).

Isn't the phone capable of accessing both CDMA and GSM? Sorry for being so dense.
 
J

jmmo20

macrumors 65816
Jun 15, 2006
1,163
102
tfitzsimons said:
There's no chance I could convince Verizon to activate a foreign bought, unlocked phone?

This makes it look as if model A1429 can work for both GSM and CDMA... Is it just one or the other based on the type of SIM inserted?

http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

It seems that vbtwo is confusing the unlocked US phone with the unlocked foreign phone... (all Netherlands iPhones are sold unlocked).

Isn't the phone capable of accessing both CDMA and GSM? Sorry for being so dense.
Click to expand...

I read a few weeks ago that non-US A1429 iphones have a special iOS version that disables the CDMA hardware, so there's no way to activate it on Verizon.

Not sure if it's true or not, as I live in Europe and see no need to ever use CDMA.
 
Tea-Aholic

Tea-Aholic

macrumors 6502
Dec 8, 2011
438
155
Melbourne, Australia
jmmo20 said:
I read a few weeks ago that non-US A1429 iphones have a special iOS version that disables the CDMA hardware, so there's no way to activate it on Verizon.

Not sure if it's true or not, as I live in Europe and see no need to ever use CDMA.
Click to expand...

That's correct. The international version A1429 GSM have the CDMA portion disabled.
 
dave006

dave006

macrumors 68040
Jul 3, 2008
3,566
889
Just West of East
tfitzsimons said:
There's no chance I could convince Verizon to activate a foreign bought, unlocked phone?

This makes it look as if model A1429 can work for both GSM and CDMA... Is it just one or the other based on the type of SIM inserted?

http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

It seems that vbtwo is confusing the unlocked US phone with the unlocked foreign phone... (all Netherlands iPhones are sold unlocked).

Isn't the phone capable of accessing both CDMA and GSM? Sorry for being so dense.
Click to expand...
Yes the model A1429 can work with both GSM and CDMA. The issue is that both Verizon and Sprint don't as a rule allow you to connect a device to their network that was not purchased directly for use on their network.

There is no magical iOS, a model A1429 in the US is exactly the same as a model A1429 purchase World Wide! The difference is in the iOS carrier bundles that get loaded to your device.

Currently in the US the new unlocked iPhone 5 is the model A1428 and not the model 1429!

Note: The unlocked iPhone 5 is model A1428. For details on LTE support see http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE. The unlocked iPhone will not work with CDMA carriers such as Verizon Wireless or Sprint. Learn more about the unlocked iPhone.

source: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone5
Open the "Or get iPhone unlocked and contract-free" section.

Dave
 
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