Have 3G on iPhone 40 plan, what's cheapest way to upgrade to a 3GS?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Have 3G on iPhone 40 plan, what's cheapest way to upgrade to a 3GS?

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Aaroona

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#261243 5-Oct-2009 14:37

Behodar:
richms: Perhaps there will be a hardware refresh of the iPhone soon to give it 900MHz, in which case you should upgrade at that time.

I believe that the upcoming iPhone for China Unicom supports WCDMA 900. Of course, it remains to be seen whether this model will be sold outside China.

I'd be surprised if Apple changed hardware for one country.

Personally I think that is highly unlikely.

Geektastic

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#261249 5-Oct-2009 14:42

richms: Extended 3g was never on the feature list for the iPhone, so whats the problem?

Yeah it sucks that vodafone only offer crappy GPRS as the fallback, but that it their company position. Edge is alive and works well on 2 degrees when you are not roaming onto vodafone.

If you are in love with the iPhone and want 3g there, then the only option at this stage is telecom. Perhaps there will be a hardware refresh of the iPhone soon to give it 900MHz, in which case you should upgrade at that time.

900MHz isnt a big deal to most people since over the world its generally regarded that 3g is very limited. NZ is virtually unique with telecoms network that has no GSM/edge fallback so has to be super-awesome coverage, and vodafone have built the same. contrast with the states where 3g coverage is a rare thing to have.

Yes 3 G may be rare in the States but don't forget that wi-fi is as common in most US cities as sheep are in NZ and, according to my brother (who lives there) it is found in 90% of cafes, hotels, bars etc in a reasonable size place and usually for free.

The problem is that the VF shop staff told me that 3G WOULD be available here "soon" when clearly it won't be - so I bought a $1200 handset based on what amounts to a misdescription....

Behodar

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#261260 5-Oct-2009 15:00

Aaroona: I'd be surprised if Apple changed hardware for one country.

Personally I think that is highly unlikely.

It appears that the Chinese iPhone is still 850 MHz. I wonder where I got 900 from (I thought I read it a while ago).

Edit: I read it here. "The new iPhone is reportedly a GSM/WCDMA model that operates on the 900MHz, 1700MHz and 1900MHz bands."

Aaroona

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#261275 5-Oct-2009 15:28

Behodar:
Aaroona: I'd be surprised if Apple changed hardware for one country.

Personally I think that is highly unlikely.

It appears that the Chinese iPhone is still 850 MHz. I wonder where I got 900 from (I thought I read it a while ago).

Edit: I read it here. "The new iPhone is reportedly a GSM/WCDMA model that operates on the 900MHz, 1700MHz and 1900MHz bands."

If im not mistaking, I'm pretty sure they're refering to GSM in that post. I read the same one. It isn't 100% clear as to what band type they're talking about, but I think it would be safe to assume they're only refering to 900GSM not UTMS

Behodar

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#261293 5-Oct-2009 15:53

Only three bands are listed, whereas usually four are available with GSM. Either way, the article is clearly wrong since it doesn't match the specs on Apple's official Chinese iPhone site. Besides, we're well and truly off-topic now :)

Geektastic

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#261298 5-Oct-2009 16:03

Why not just make one handset that works on all the networks?!

It might not be the smallest, but it should be perfectly possible. Throw in Iridium capability and landline connectivity and call it "The One Phone"!

Behodar

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#261319 5-Oct-2009 16:38

Apparently 850 and 900 MHz WCDMA interfere with each other too much. I believe that they have quad-band WCDMA working in the lab though, so it should be in phones some time next year.

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