buy a T-Mobile iphone in Europe - will it work in USA?

[ladida1965]

I am going to Europe next week (Netherlands).
I have U.S. T-mobile account. (voice and data) and currently have a T-mobile "Dash" smart phone.

I know that the sole provider for the iphone in Holland is T-Mobile (like AT&T is here in the US).
Can I buy an iphone in holland that works here in the USA with my t-mobile account? Has anybody tried this yet? If so, did you go to the Apple store in Europe to buy it or to the T-Mobile store?
Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

[deannnnn]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I don't think you'll be able to get one without signing a contract with tmobile in the Netherlands.

 

[Martin Finch]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you'll need a contract to buy one. Or you can pay for one straight out if they're available on 'pay as you go' - not 100% sure about that though. But buying on contract anyway you'll need quite a few papers to back you up, bills, letters, credit card etc, at least that's how it is in the UK. Sorry can't give you more specific advice, I've never bought phones in the Netherlands before. Best of luck.

 

[jlwillia]

This is a great plan!

The U.S. Dollar is up against both the Euro and GBP (British Pound). This means your US Dollars will "buy" more Euros, which of course means you can buy that iPhone in Holland for cheaper!

Let's say the current exchange rate is 1 Euro = $1.29 (as of this post). A year ago today, 1 Euro = $1.46. From my quick research, it looks like a 16 GB iPhone costs 159.95 Euros from T-Mobile in the Netherlands. So if you bought an iPhone a year ago in Holland (I know you couldn't, but just go with me) it would have cost $233.53. On the other hand, buying one today would cost only $206.33.

You just saved $27.20!

All of this of course is assuming you could get the phone without the contract and there are no other costs associated with getting the iPhone in Holland.

P.S. How do you make the Euro sign on a U.S. keyboard? Macbook if that makes a difference....

 

[skubish]

P.S. How do you make the Euro sign on a U.S. keyboard? Macbook if that makes a difference....

Shift + Option 2 for €. Google is your friend.