Originally Posted by sjgadsby

Threads merged.

Originally Posted by jinx405

Hi everyone! I’ve been reading these forums a lot the past few weeks, but never got around to registering until today

My question is relatively simple, and I’ve tried searching before creating a new thread but I couldn’t find any… most N900 region comparisons are between the US and EU. I live in Australia (where the possibility of getting the N900 is pretty much nil) and I want to import the sim-free unlocked phone. Where is the best region I should buy it from? I have 2 options:

A) buy from New York if I travel there for a holiday next month
B) get a friend that lives in UAE to buy it for me from there


My questions:
1) Will I be able to use the US/UAE phone in Australia? Since the phone is quad band, I should be able to, right?

2) Are the Middle East GSM/UMTS standards the same as EU/Asia/Australia?

3) What differences will I find between the 2 region phones? From what I have read so far, the keyboard, and charger plugs (US=110v) will be different. Is there anything else, like 3G freqs?

4) Wifi bands 12-13 missing in US model – how much of an impact it would make if I don’t have those bands in the phone?

5) Someone posted in another thread that there has been some sort of censorship in the UAE phones before, is this true for the unlocked N900?

6) Anything else I should be wary about? Anyone here following my footsteps?

Note that buying from US (Amazon after $50 rebate) is about US$200 cheaper than from the UAE, which has got me quite interested.

Thanks in advance!

Originally Posted by agogo

I have the middle east version,
the only diffrence is the tag in the box, everything is the same inside.

Originally Posted by jinx405

good stuff! i'm sure you're loving the device?

tag in the box - which tag? so physically everything's the same? from your other post, you mentioned that the keyboard is the same (ie English and Fn characters) too?

you said you got it for $500++ with 2 years warranty - is that US dollars? how'd you manage that? the Nokia centre I contacted yesterday in Abu Dhabi said that they're selling it for 2999dirhams, which means about US$ 816. that's pretty darn expensive

Originally Posted by Johnx

1) Almost certainly, but don't take our word for it. Check what frequencies for GSM/EDGE and 3G (CDMA) your carrier supports and compare them against those supported by the device. At very least the phone and basic low-speed data will work, but there's a chance high-speed data (3G) won't work if your carrier doesn't support the right frequencies.

3) All N900s shipped support the same 3G frequencies. One thing to watch out for is that not all keyboard layouts have 4 arrow keys. In fact, if I recall correctly, only US, UK and NL keyboards have 4 arrow keys.

4) Differences in number of wifi channels is determined by software, and as far as I know the device automatically changes the number of wifi channels available by detecting your location.

5) I don't think so, but if it was really good censorware/spyware it should be impossible to detect. Your decision about how paranoid to be.

6) Just double check the 3G frequencies your carrier supports. The info might even be on wikipedia.

-John

Originally Posted by agogo

Just the model tag next to the barcode.
Keyboard is English with fn charcters, the vendor promised that they will be replacing them with English + Arabic keyboards in 2 weeks for free.
It costs 580 USD, 2200 dirhams, with few shops if they have it in stock, some shops are selling it for 2500 dhs after re-stocking. Prices in Dubai are similar to Abu Dhabi, 2999.

Originally Posted by jinx405

Whoah – that’s a pretty big price difference. Are these Nokia outlets or a regular mobile phone shop? Are you able to point me in the right direction on which shop to go to?

Is it normal for phone prices to be more expensive in Dubai and Abu Dhabi?

Originally Posted by jinx405

Thanks for your in-depth reply!

1) according to wiki, the phone supports:
GSM 850/900/1800/1900
GPRS 107/64 kbps DL/UL
EDGE 296/178 kbps DL/UL
UMTS 900/1700/2100
WCDMA 384/384 kbps DL/UL
HSPA 10/2 Mbps DL/UL

And my carrier supports
3G: 900/2100MHz
GSM: 900/1800
Source: http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/net_auo3.shtml

This means that it should work in Australia without a problem do I need to be concerned about HSPA? Or is that a global standard?

3) Not all keyboards have 4 arrow keys? Really? What will physically be there otherwise? I’ll have to suss this out.

4) Good stuff

5) Haha I guess I’ll have to find out myself… hopefully it should be alright…