US IPhone in UK?

[J4CKO]

In New York at the moment and my wife wants a new phone, will an iPhone 15 pro bought over here work fine in the UK ?

The guy in Apple said that the difference is the sim slot, US ones don’t have one and use an eSIM only, she is on O2 which supports eSIMs.

Wouldn’t bother but it’s $999 and at home £1099 at home, so 100 cheaper vs plus the exchange rate.

[pequod]

Have you taken into account that Import Duty/VAT will be payable when you declare it at the airport on arrival?

[Nurburgsingh]

yes they'll work fine

[x5tuu]

pequod said:

Have you taken into account that Import Duty/VAT will be payable when you declare it at the airport on arrival?

Have a day off.

OP - yes it will work fine, as long as her network will provide her with an esim - as the US standard handsets don't have a physical sim slot.

[megaphone]

Yes it will work however, the US use different frequency bands for their signals, so I would be checking 5G etc will work over here.

Personally I'd buy the UK version.

[craigjm]

pequod said:

Have you taken into account that Import Duty/VAT will be payable when you declare it at the airport on arrival?

There are so many long queues at the red lane with people doing just that.

OP yes it will work fine. Only issue if that future trade in deals may be impacted etc so think about how you may wish to sell it on.

[tim0409]

At the best exchange rate it’s a £140 saving, when you include NY sales tax. I suppose you have to weigh up if that’s enough of a saving to make up for the loss of any warranty repairs after the first year.

I wouldn’t worry about import duty - I’ve never ever been stopped in the 30 years I’ve been bringing stuff over from the US for personal use. I suspect they have more important things to deal with than the odd iphone.

[pequod]

I'm glad to see the age-old practice of smuggling is alive and well!

FWIW, I gave my earlier advice in good faith just in case the OP didn't realise or remember the Law on importing goods.

Carry on....

[sgrimshaw]

$999 plus NY sales tax = $1089, roughly speaking that's £900 .. with another 3% on top for overseas CC charge (unless your CC doesn't charge for overseas use)

John Lewis has it for £999 with 2 year warranty.

Only you can say if it's worth saving at best £100 to have a US model.

[craigjm]

sgrimshaw said:

$999 plus NY sales tax = $1089, roughly speaking that's £900 .. with another 3% on top for overseas CC charge (unless your CC doesn't charge for overseas use)

John Lewis has it for £999 with 2 year warranty.

Only you can say if it's worth saving at best £100 to have a US model.

Yep and without the sim tray probably lose that £100 when come to trade it in later

[wyson]

I guess it would be worth it if you travelled a lot to the states or other countries that have deployed mmwave 5g? Doesn’t exist in the UK, its all sub 6 here.

I’d look up potential differences in radio bands supported and the bands used by your UK mobile phone provider. Might be the US version doesn’t support a particular frequency used here, meaning your reception might be patchier than with a UK phone. Radio bands are quite often regionally tailored because of regulations around spectrum usage. Mmwave 5g is an obvious one. Exists in the US, doesn’t exist in the UK, so the UK phones don’t support it. Not sure if there will be battery life differences too because of the mmwave hardware in US handsets?

Plenty of MVNO’s also don’t support esims, so that might limit future network flexibility too.

If it were me, and I was saving £300 quid, I’d do it, but for £100, I would go for a UK phone, unless I had to go to the states frequently.

Edited by wyson on Monday 23 October 11:26

[LordGrover]

I don’t know whether it’s relevant, but I recently bought a refurb/renewed Apple Watch SE from Amazon. Sold as WiFi only but received a US model LTE watch.
Whilst it shows mobile service in settings, it won’t work in the UK.

[camel_landy]

megaphone said:

Yes it will work however, the US use different frequency bands for their signals, so I would be checking 5G etc will work over here.

Personally I'd buy the UK version.

^^^ This...

The US network providers use different LTE (4G) network channels, to those used in the UK. So whilst the US phone _will_ work, it can be a PITA.

M

[Hedgedhog]

US phones support mmWave 5G tech which European phones do not. Its probably not an issue but worth double checking.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/mmwave-vs-sub-6ghz...