mobile phones

can we buy mobile phone made in japan and use it in other countries like malaysia??i notice that the japanese uses mostly their local made phones and not phones like nokia or sony erricsson phones why?

You would have to check with the carriers in the countries you plan to use the phone in to find out whether it is possible.

Japanese use phones made in Japan for the same reason they drive mostly Japanese cars- a) there are trade barriers to foreign manufacturers here, b) there is no need to import something when there is no shortage of Japanese manufacturers, c) people prefer local brands that they are familiar with.

I'm willing to bet that not many Finnish people use a Japanese-made mobile phone.

It is not the carrier in the country you intend to use, so much as the practice of SIM locking Japanese 3G phones that cause the problem. (e.g. the SIM that is used in any 3G phone carries the phone service provider, number, subscriber details, etc. The phone service providers in Japan lock the phones so that they can only be used with their own SIM)

Many foreign phones can be SIM unlocked with a simple code provided by the phone service provider, or using a third party.

Many of the Japanese phones are not able to be unlocked in this way. This is particularly the case with Japanese made phones, such as Toshiba, Panasonic, Sharp, etc. Other phones such as Samsung may be able to be unlocked. I have seens a few SIM unlocked phones at Akihabara(Electric Town).

Another aspect about using Japanese phones overseas, relates to the frequency. Some of the 3G phones have quad band GSM (even though Japan doesn't use GSM) along with 2100MHz 3G. In order to use a Japanese phone, your country needs to support 2100MHz 3G.

Hi guys,

Thanks for your reply on what to wear and also
on mobile phones. Guess i will have to bring my own phone or buy international phone card for public phones. Thanks

Cat