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Using an iPhone 5 internationally

E

edmundpw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 12, 2011
4
0
I do a fair amount of international travel and typically have a local simcard to use in my iPhone wherever I am.

When I upgraded from the 3GS to the 4, I had to get a whole load of new simcards and it seems like I'll be doing the same this time around.

But I'm also a bit concerned that an iPhone I buy in one country may not be the same as an iPhone I buy in a different country and that when I try to use it, it may not work optimally with the local 4G network. I confess that I am completely ignorant of all the jargon here - GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc.

So my question is whether I should (a) not worry about this at all, (b) buy my iPhone5 in Australia (where I live and spend most time), (c) buy it in the UK (my next most frequent destination), (d) stick to iPhone 4 or 4S.

The countries I spend time in regularly (at least regularly enough to bother with a local simcard) are, in descending order of time spent ...

Australia
UK
USA
Spain
Italy

Thanks in advance for any advice/help!
 
Yes, I saw that. But it's not a page designed for international users, really - ie people wanting to use the same phone in different countries. I tried asking in the Apple Store yesterday, but I don't trust the answer I got - in fact I don't think they understood the question.
 
Get the Verizon iPhone 5. Believe it or not this has the most compatible bands for the countries you listed. And all Verizon iPhone 5 are GSM unlocked right out of the box.
 
I don't own an iPhone 5, yet. But to my knowledge, iPhone 5 is a world phone (with the exception on the LTE). If you buy the GSM version, the phone should work with other GSM network worldwide. You may not be able to use the LTE speed, but you can still use 3G.

I'm assuming you're using GSM in Australia and since you reside mostly in Australia, get the A1429 Model. It's also compatible with LTE in UK.

To my knowledge, apple hasn't sold the "officially unlocked" version of iPhone 5. But some buyers said that it's unlocked if you buy it off contract. Not sure how it is in Australia though. You can wait a month or two for the official release, or buy one now, check if it's locked/unlocked. If apple refuses to unlock it, you can go to eBay and pay $10 for someone to unlock it. :D
 
Thanks moosquared!

Apple in Australia sells unlocked iPhone5s outright. I assume it must be the model you suggest, as the others apparently don't support LTE in Australia.
 
If you don't care about LTE speeds, you can use an iPhone 5 on 3g HSPA+ nearly anywhere.
If you are looking to get LTE speeds, that's a very different scenario. There are so many variations on the LTE frequencies used worldwide that it's just not practical at this point for Apple to have a truly "World" phone for LTE.
 
As long as you are able to get the nano sim card in those countries (or get a cutter from eBay for $10)...AND have you iPhone 5 "factory" unlocked, you are fine.

My dad took his iPhone 5 to a couple of Asian countries and it works perfectly (he used the cutter to cut the regular sim cards to nano size).
 
bcaslis said:
Get the Verizon iPhone 5. Believe it or not this has the most compatible bands for the countries you listed. And all Verizon iPhone 5 are GSM unlocked right out of the box.
Click to expand...

bcalis is correct. I chose the Verizon version for the same reason.
 
edmundpw said:
I do a fair amount of international travel and typically have a local simcard to use in my iPhone wherever I am.

When I upgraded from the 3GS to the 4, I had to get a whole load of new simcards and it seems like I'll be doing the same this time around.

But I'm also a bit concerned that an iPhone I buy in one country may not be the same as an iPhone I buy in a different country and that when I try to use it, it may not work optimally with the local 4G network. I confess that I am completely ignorant of all the jargon here - GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc.

So my question is whether I should (a) not worry about this at all, (b) buy my iPhone5 in Australia (where I live and spend most time), (c) buy it in the UK (my next most frequent destination), (d) stick to iPhone 4 or 4S.

The countries I spend time in regularly (at least regularly enough to bother with a local simcard) are, in descending order of time spent ...

Australia
UK
USA
Spain
Italy

Thanks in advance for any advice/help!
Click to expand...

The UK iPhone is identical to the Australian iPhone.

The "most" (hehe) world phone is the Verizon iPhone 5 since it can use LTE bands in the US, Japan, Australia and Europe (but not Canada).

If you don't care about getting LTE in the US (and quite frankly, Verizon is only decent when you have 5 bars of LTE -- it's a big shock coming from a good network like Telstra or even AT&T "4G" when dropping down to "3G") then the AU iPhone will be perfectly fine on AT&T "4G" there.
 
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