Technology and Travel

Mr E

Hiya folks,

I'm off on holiday to America (with a bit of business tacked on at the end), and I have some questions to ask about technology abroad, and technology bought abroad.

1. I need my phone over there. Now my T610 is great, but it only has 3 or 4 days charge in it (and I'm over there for a fortnight). If I buy a basic trans-continental adaptor, can I use my charger over there?

2. I hope to buy a Gameboy Advance SP and MP3 player when I'm over there. Obviously, they'll come with American chargers. What do I need to get them to work in Ireland? If I buy equivalent chargers over here, will they work with American hardware, or will they fry the insides? Has anyone any experience of buying portable electronics in the USA for use in Ireland?

Thanks in advance,
Dave.

milltown

Phone:
Firstly I presume that phone is tri-band, otherwise it'll just be a paperweight in the states. I thought I had a pretty top of the range (at one stage) phone, a Nokia 8850, but had to borrow a 6310i for a recent US trip. Have a look at your charger. It should have the input voltage range printed or stamped on it. As far as I know most chargers work with anything from 110v to 240v so a plug adaptor will do you there.

Electronics:
Power adaptors might work the same as the phone but usually because America is such a big market they can just make them for domestic power i.e.120v only, no option to use 240v. Ask the sales assistant to show you the power supply and check for suitable voltages. Otherwise buy a universal power supply in Argos for €5-10 when you get back. But check the input voltage needed.
Worst case scenario, you can buy step down transformers to drop our 240v to their 120v and plug in the supplied power supply.

Mr E

Thanks Milltown, thats perfect.

My phone charger is 100-240, so that'll be OK (and yeah, its a triband!)

- Dave.

GarGuile

Watch out, I don't think you can use european games in an american machine without having to get the handheld chipped/change???.

sceptre

Originally posted by GarGuile
Watch out, I don't think you can use european games in an american machine without having to get the handheld chipped/change???.

AFAIk there aren't any regions for the GBA

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by TmB
If I buy equivalent chargers over here, will they work with American hardware, or will they fry the insides? Has anyone any experience of buying portable electronics in the USA for use in Ireland?

This has worked for me - the internals of the device are usually identical, it's the external power supply that is different.

I bought a device over in the US and bought an Irish replacement adapter over here and it worked perfectly. The output of both US and Irish adapters were identical, it was the input that was obviously different.

The GBA does not have regions. I bought games over yonder and brought them back without problem.