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@uthetha: Welcome.
Thinking now...I wouldn't mind getting a prepaid phone for private use...sounds good.
I like the fact that i can't get another phone for two years because you see so many phones taht make you drool and you wish you could get them, but then the very next month something twice as good comes along. And you can be glad you didn't get it...(K700i excluded)
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Posted: 2005-03-02 08:07:19
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Once again let me welcome Utheta to the thread... sometimes I feel people are ripped off bcoz they're too lazy to shop around. UK prices on cellphones are less expensive bcoz there's more competition in that market. In SA prices for low end phones is competitive bcoz the market is crowded with manufacturers trying to get a bigger slice of the pie.
This message was posted from a K700i
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Posted: 2005-03-02 10:41:46
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Did you see the thread posted by that guy who wants to rip the camera out of his k700?
All cause he can't be bothered to take his non camera phone to work cause he's not allowed a cam phone there.
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Posted: 2005-03-02 13:33:57
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Thanks for all the welcomes, guys. It is great to be 'on board'.
As I mentioned in my first post, there are various factors, that we all know about, as to why they are so much cheaper abroad. I agree with brix regarding the low end phone prices, they are indeed on a par with prices here if you just use the exchange rate as a reference. This would also be the key market area too. Obviously the k700i is not a low end phone. However, the massive price differences are really amplified as soon as you look at mid-end and higher class handsets. The price increments v/s handset features is far greater in SA.
Just some further facts: many of the handsets that were UK PAYG that I have unlocked and flashed are all working fine in SA, even with their foreign network firmware and branding. By unlocking new phones, you do invalidate the warranty. Which then leaves sim-free handsets, which thus cost a bit more. Check out
www.mobilefun.co.uk or
www.mphone.co.uk. Still leagues cheaper than SA sim-free, eg. Nokia 6230 for £194.95 sim-free...(I quoted Nokia as a reference, as we know how Nokia-mad SA is, and yes, I am a loyal SE fan.)
Warranties are covered internationally, as long as the imei number is on the invoice. The only 2 phones that have given any probs out of the many I have sent to SA is a sim-free Ericsson R520m, about 3 years ago. The repair place in JHB wouldn't fix it, as the invoice I had from
www.expansys.com did not have the imei number printed on it. The other was with the memory card that came with an unlocked UK t-mobile Nokia 3650.
Going back to the cheaper UK PAYG unlocking option, we were able to get wap/gprs and mms settings from the Nokia site when the SA networks did not support some of the handsets. I unlocked a few UK t-mobile SE T630 phones, which were £99 + unlocking. Vodacom were able to send all the settings to the SA users via sms no probs.
Oh, and contracts here are minimum 1 year, not 2. After that year, should you phone up the network and wish to cancel, they usually get their retention departments to give you fantastic deals and upgrades to stay on. I am on my third UK contract now and have benefitted, handset-wise, greatly from this.
If any of you need facts or info, I'm only too glad to supply you with these. I don't ship or airmail handsets from here, as too many parcels seem to go 'astray' at JHB International...
All I'm aiming to do is hopefully expose the facts for comparison purposes, maybe rally enough support and noise to get people more aware of the price differences and ask more questions...but I guess the same old answers of 'import costs' etc will be given. Funny that, because countries eg. NZ and Aus also need to import..
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!
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Posted: 2005-03-02 13:41:23
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@Siosal: the question one needs to ask is whether said gentleman is a retard. Off topic still getting to grips with my new phone...downloaded some awesome 3D games...but now I'm trying to connect the "my friends" feature so I can chat to friends via MSN.
This message was posted from a K700i
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Posted: 2005-03-02 13:43:06
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@brix, so wud u hav liked any extra features on k7? I only want memo card and 3g extra.
Whats the sh*t mtn mite launch u talked bout on nigerian 4um?
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Posted: 2005-03-02 17:25:00
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Hey ppl ! Howzit ? Im new here ! And dig Mtn & SE ! Whens Mtn launchin 3g ? I cant wait
This message was posted from a T610
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Posted: 2005-03-02 18:37:29
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@Rhino...what I was refering to on the Nigerian was HSDPA, the next evolution of 3G...Vodacom have been trialing it and MTN might just launch it...it still uses 3G architecture only improvement is transfer rates(1Mb/s)... BTW I'm happy with the phone although I've discovered a bug today (it switches off by itself when I'm playing games for an extended period)... BTW welcome Brad, hope you keep the posts coming.
This message was posted from a K700i
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Posted: 2005-03-02 19:18:24
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@brad.
Welcm, i h8 mtn,they gprs 20times mor expensive.
@brix
Mine neva resets during gameplay, use to reset on wap tho
@all

What do u think bout se k750i?
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Posted: 2005-03-02 20:14:00
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@Rhino...the K750 is nice but maybe I should get it in 8 months after it's launch in Europe, should be affordable by then. The phone might costs R5000 or on some ridiculous contract when it eventually launches here in May-June (wishfull).
This message was posted from a K700i
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Posted: 2005-03-02 20:28:23
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