Probably a silly question but..

i-bert · 12 Apr 2013 at 21:32

My girlfriend in Spain has dropped her mobile in water and the WiFi no longer works. I'm going to see her and want to buy her a new one from here as they are much cheaper, will it work fine over there with her sim card? She's on Vodaphone.

Also, any ideas on what to buy around the £150 range. She has a Sony thing that runs android, but its quite slow, but I'd like to get her another sony but it'snot essential. I was looking at the Xperia Tipo and U.

Thanks

Drake5 · 12 Apr 2013 at 21:39

Galaxy Ace 2 is a fantastic phone for the price. £130 on 02. Does everything fine, fast and without issue.

Orcvader · 12 Apr 2013 at 21:45

Tom_D said:
Galaxy Ace 2 is a fantastic phone for the price. £130 on 02. Does everything fine, fast and without issue.

This. Similiar SoC as the Xperia U, but slightly bigger screen, slightly more RAM with the plus side of an SD card slot for more storage. And it seems the 4.1 JB update just started rolling out for these as well, although very slowly.

As for working in Spain, it should be fine. Spain uses the 2100 band for 3G and 900/1800 for 2G which the Ace 2 supports, so will be fine.

EDIT: Actually more googling shows Spain and the UK use pretty much the same GSM bands, so all UK phones in theory should work just fine in Spain with max speeds.

benwoodcock · 12 Apr 2013 at 21:58

Try drying out under warm lamp/spanish sun, in bowl of rice.

i-bert · 12 Apr 2013 at 22:19

benwoodcock said:
Try drying out under warm lamp/spanish sun, in bowl of rice.

Thanks but she's tried that.

i-bert · 12 Apr 2013 at 22:28

So would it just be a case of buying a PAYG one and just using her sim?

I'll have to buy it from a shop so the cheapest I've seen is £160 from CPW.

i-bert · 13 Apr 2013 at 10:14

Please help, I need to buy it today and I'm a proper noob with these things.

toasteh · 13 Apr 2013 at 10:36

Yes just make sure it's not network locked, shouldn't be if its sim free

i-bert · 13 Apr 2013 at 10:49

toasteh said:
Yes just make sure it's not network locked, shouldn't be if its sim free

The Sim free ones are £200, but the PAYG ones are £160. She is already on Vodaphone so could I just buy a PAYG one and swap to her sim card?

J-FRO · 13 Apr 2013 at 12:16

Well if the PAYG one is on Vodafone, and she's on vodafone, why not buy the Vodafone PAYG one and just swap the sims?

EDIT: Or is she on Spanish Vodafone? In which case I'm not sure how interchangeable it is in that situation, but it'd be crazy if you cant put a Spanish Vodafone SIM in an English Vodafone phone.

i-bert · 13 Apr 2013 at 14:44

Thanks for the advice guys, but I decided that she probably only uses the WiFi for free calls to me, so I just bought her a Nexus 7.