Buying iPhone (Chicago: sales, sales tax, live)

[nienie85]

I'm visiting Chicago, and I'm planning to go to an Apple Store, ask for no contract iPhone, and bring it to my country, it's that possible?

Thanks

[chet everett]

I don't think so. The phones that are sold by Apple in the retail stores (or shipped to US addresses) have SIMs and "carrier subsidiary codes" that are exclusive to AT&T.

In countries that force Apple to sell only unlocked iPhones they are considerably more expensive.

[surlycue]

I don't think so. They sell them with the contract. Can't you buy an unlocked one on Craigslist or Ebay? That's what I do with European phones and have never had an issue.

A warning about unlocked iPhones though, you do not want to ever do updates because Apple gears them to lock out hacked phones somehow, or at least they did with Gen Ones. Someone has probably figured a way around that now.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by nienie85

I'm visiting Chicago, and I'm planning to go to an Apple Store, ask for no contract iPhone, and bring it to my country, it's that possible?

Thanks

Maybe ask your country? How the heck would we know? (Especially since you did not state what country you are from.)

[STLMetro]

There are ways to unlock an iPhone if you buy it here in the states, but is the price really that different that you want to go to all that trouble? If you do end up buying one here, get out of Cook county to avoid the high sales tax.

[nienie85]

I wanna buy it there because even when it's a bit expensive, it is cheaper than here (around $1000 16GB 3GS). STLMetro what's the % of sales taxes, I heard it's 11%.

[linicx]

It is all good information, but the best source is the Apple Genius Bar. They can tell you whether or not the American iPhone can be legally converted for use in your country?. It is possible Apple can do it in the Chicago store.

[nienie85]

Originally Posted by linicx

It is all good information, but the best source is the Apple Genius Bar. What you may learn is the
band Apple and AT&T use will not work in any foreign country - or it may be limited to one country only - such as Canada.

In this case you may want to look at Sprint because they do offer phones with a band that works in foreign countries. I am partial to Samsung phones for a lot of reasons, but mostly because they work as advertised and the keyboard light at night is excellent. Sprint and Verizon use the same band. I think Sprint customer service is superior. AT&T and Apple are far from where you live.

Actually people here have iPhones, and they work on the same band, so I don't have to worry about that

[chet everett]

You are missing the point -- the iPhones sold overseas are NOT locked to AT&T like the ones over hear. Thus if you buy one here and you do not use it on AT&T you will need to hack it and you risk it getting locked back to AT&T should you ever want to use the update function.

The hardware is the same. The restriction built in are to the software / firmware.

[ChiLubeck]

Originally Posted by surlycue

I don't think so. They sell them with the contract. Can't you buy an unlocked one on Craigslist or Ebay?

A word of caution: I know someone who was held up at gunpoint on a craigslist expensive cellphone scam. If you meet someone, make sure it's a public place.