# UK phones



## maxijud

Can anyone tell me if UK phones work in New Zealand.

We are moving out in May and trying to work out what to bring. Got most things sorted but this one is left on the list of things to sort out.

Many thanks.


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## Guest

Our UK mobile phones work fine, you just have to get them unlocked and that can take some time especially if you are with O2 ( they had internal issues)

Then get a NZ Sim, we were with 2Degrees and they were good.


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## kiwigser

*GSM Phones*

Higgy's correct, GSM phones work with Vodaphone and 2 degrees, but a lot will not work on Telecom, you need a tri-band phone. I got caught out buying a parallel import Samsung, but my wife,s tablet can use my sim.


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## tocker

Does this include iPhones? Will they work over in nz?


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## Guest

We bought a friends UK Iphone4, he got it unlocked from O2, posted it over to NZ and it works fine here using 2Degrees.


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## escapedtonz

tocker said:


> Does this include iPhones? Will they work over in nz?


Hey tocker,
We brought over 2 x UK iPhone 4's.

We had them on contract with Orange.
Approx 6 weeks before we left I requested the phones to be unlocked to all networks. 
Took approx 1 week and it can be a rip off cost-wise as all you are doing is paying for the instructions to unlock via iTunes.
Luckily for us Orange forgot to add the charges to our final bills ha ha so didn't cost us a penny.

Around the same time I went online and ordered 2 x micro SIM cards from a SIM card retailer in NZ. Purchased the 2Degrees ones especially for the iPhone 4.
These cost approx £40 for both on Pay As U Go and these were posted out to us from NZ to UK so we already had the SIM cards and new moby numbers before we left so we could pass on to family and friends.

On arrival we just swapped the SIM cards and job done.
There are a few settings that need changing in the phone due to the new time zone and you'll find a lot of the apps can't be updated or are useless.
You'll also need to update your iTunes settings.
I'd recommend deleting all the UK apps and starting again.

After a couple of weeks we transferred the sims onto pay monthly. Just a lot easier to handle. Phones work fine.

We used to pay £35 a month each and got 200 mins free to mobiles and landlines in UK, 500 texts & 750 mb Internet plus free home broadband.
Bill usually around £40 a month each.

Here we pay $39 a month each and get 200 mins free to mobiles and landlines in NZ, 500 texts & 1.1 gb Internet but no free home broadband.
Bill usually around $40 a month each but costs us an extra $75 a month for home broadband from another provider.

All in all we pay slightly less here for mobile usage and home broadband.

Cheers


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## maxijud

*Uk phones in NZ*



maxijud said:


> Can anyone tell me if UK phones work in New Zealand.
> 
> We are moving out in May and trying to work out what to bring. Got most things sorted but this one is left on the list of things to sort out.
> 
> Many thanks.


Thanks everyone for the helpful info. Did mean mobiles but it has also made me think about our landline phones too. I know that the jacks are the same but do the phones work?


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## Liam(at)Large

As said above, you need to have a network unlocked phone, our factory unlocked iPhone 4Ss work great, excellent reception on Telecom everywhere. 2Degrees is a new network, not great coverage nationwide, but good in major cities, has the worst data speeds of any NZ provider, data is my number 1 cellular use, need the speed!


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## maxijud

escapedtonz said:


> Hey tocker,
> We brought over 2 x UK iPhone 4's.
> 
> We had them on contract with Orange.
> Approx 6 weeks before we left I requested the phones to be unlocked to all networks.
> Took approx 1 week and it can be a rip off cost-wise as all you are doing is paying for the instructions to unlock via iTunes.
> Luckily for us Orange forgot to add the charges to our final bills ha ha so didn't cost us a penny.
> 
> Around the same time I went online and ordered 2 x micro SIM cards from a SIM card retailer in NZ. Purchased the 2Degrees ones especially for the iPhone 4.
> These cost approx £40 for both on Pay As U Go and these were posted out to us from NZ to UK so we already had the SIM cards and new moby numbers before we left so we could pass on to family and friends.
> 
> On arrival we just swapped the SIM cards and job done.
> There are a few settings that need changing in the phone due to the new time zone and you'll find a lot of the apps can't be updated or are useless.
> You'll also need to update your iTunes settings.
> I'd recommend deleting all the UK apps and starting again.
> 
> After a couple of weeks we transferred the sims onto pay monthly. Just a lot easier to handle. Phones work fine.
> 
> We used to pay £35 a month each and got 200 mins free to mobiles and landlines in UK, 500 texts & 750 mb Internet plus free home broadband.
> Bill usually around £40 a month each.
> 
> Here we pay $39 a month each and get 200 mins free to mobiles and landlines in NZ, 500 texts & 1.1 gb Internet but no free home broadband.
> Bill usually around $40 a month each but costs us an extra $75 a month for home broadband from another provider.
> 
> All in all we pay slightly less here for mobile usage and home broadband.
> 
> Cheers




Many thanks for your informative reply. Answered hubby's questions about his i-phone. We are going to be fairly remote up in Leigh so just hope that the coverage will be good. Know we can have broadband but it is SLOW which will take some getting used to.

So much to think about and so little time...


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## maxijud

Liam(at)Large said:


> As said above, you need to have a network unlocked phone, our factory unlocked iPhone 4Ss work great, excellent reception on Telecom everywhere. 2Degrees is a new network, not great coverage nationwide, but good in major cities, has the worst data speeds of any NZ provider, data is my number 1 cellular use, need the speed!


Many thanks for the reply. Don't think that 2degrees will work for us up in Leigh so will have to investigate the Telecom option. Will have to start with the pay as you go option first until our house is finished in September but hopefully by then we will have the joys of phones/broadband sorted out by then.


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## maxijud

Higgy said:


> Our UK mobile phones work fine, you just have to get them unlocked and that can take some time especially if you are with O2 ( they had internal issues)
> 
> Then get a NZ Sim, we were with 2Degrees and they were good.



Thanks for that. We are with O2 so will go in there this weekend and check it out.


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## maxijud

kiwigser said:


> Higgy's correct, GSM phones work with Vodaphone and 2 degrees, but a lot will not work on Telecom, you need a tri-band phone. I got caught out buying a parallel import Samsung, but my wife,s tablet can use my sim.


Thanks for your reply. I will check and see if my phone will work - otherwise I will have to invest in a new one.....I know that they are much more expensive in NZ so something to be done here before we come I thnk.


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## kiwigser

*Not too expensive*



maxijud said:


> Thanks for your reply. I will check and see if my phone will work - otherwise I will have to invest in a new one.....I know that they are much more expensive in NZ so something to be done here before we come I thnk.


If you have a decent phone and it works here, only common sense to bring it out.

Some things are very expensive here, but phones are not. I was looking for a new phone and the prices were not that different from the UK. You can usually get large ticket items at good prices, with a few exceptions like front loading washing machines etc. Its the small items that are sometime loaded and that's were Amazon comes in, using NZ Posts Youpost for freight forwarding. Its $400 NZ before you hit GST and inport duty.


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