Buying an iphone in Hong Kong

Cleisthenes · 6 Dec 2013 at 00:51

My dad is currently in hong kong and is wondering whether he could buy a 5c there and then buy a sim in the uk. Will this work?

kefan77 · 6 Dec 2013 at 01:08

yes, if it's unlocked obviously. the only worry would be warranty.

Cleisthenes · 6 Dec 2013 at 01:13

Great thanks

Audigex · 6 Dec 2013 at 14:35

Warranty and the potential for customs to apply duty to it on his return (the best bet being to throw the box away... once a phone is in your pocket they have no way to know how old it is or whether it was bought while abroad)

Deyvy · 7 Dec 2013 at 15:20

Depending on where you buy it, it's a international warranty. So there's shouldnt be any concern there. I've bought 2 macbooks from abroad, one recently had a problem within 14 days, they straight out replaced it for me. My replacement even came with the £ key.

lamboman · 7 Dec 2013 at 20:58

Deyvy said:
Depending on where you buy it, it's a international warranty. So there's shouldnt be any concern there. I've bought 2 macbooks from abroad, one recently had a problem within 14 days, they straight out replaced it for me. My replacement even came with the £ key.

Anything that has a cellular radio doesn't get an international warranty as far as I know. My recommendation to the OP is to not do it, even though the price may be far better.

R4z0r · 7 Dec 2013 at 22:50

I've heard Apple will honour the warranty but they won't give you a replacement there and then like they would with a UK phone. They'll ship it to HK (Or wherever it's from...) and deal with it there.

Depends on how much money he's saving by buying it there though.

Also agree you need to leave the box there otherwise potential for customs to charge you VAT on it.

kefan77 · 7 Dec 2013 at 22:57

I had a look and apple store HK vs apple UK is about £100 saving on 16GB 5C.

lamboman · 7 Dec 2013 at 23:22

Totally not worth it IMO. You can get a brand new, fully unlocked 5C on the 'Bay for a little more than that and get a full UK warranty. It'll probably take a little time (as it would need to have been purchased from Apple themselves, without a contract) however it's worth it. I paid £430 for a brand new UK 5C with AppleCare+ (was purchased for a business who bought too many, don't know why they didn't get a refund for it).

Orcvader · 7 Dec 2013 at 23:53

Last time I checked HK was a lot more expensive than the UK for electronics. That didn't stop my mum from buying a 4S for my dad however... Signal wise, it seems fine with the UK networks. Not sure on the 5c's 4G though.

kefan77 · 7 Dec 2013 at 23:56

not sure which HK you checked, but the HK in Asia was never lot more expensive for electronics than UK.

mame · 8 Dec 2013 at 00:54

Apple store site are doing 10 months interest free at the moment if that helps you. Iphone 5S 16gb is 10 months of £54.90 free postage.

R4z0r · 8 Dec 2013 at 09:03

One of other thing, check out the LTE support on the HK model.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

You can see uk network support here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks