Drawbacks of importing a smartphone

[Daniel Puchert]

Smartphone import warning in South Africa

South Africans importing smartphones instead of buying locally could be scoring a good deal, but their devices might not function as in officially supported countries.

Although there are many smartphones available in South Africa from numerous brands and at various price points, certain models popular elsewhere are not available locally.

 

[Romito]

Google doesn’t take us seriously

 

[PaulGherkin]

Apple does not take us seriously

 

[Bernoldus Niemand]

Apple does not take us seriously

Purchased mine in the EU and everything works here.

 

[FiestaST]

Nothing doesn’t take us seriously

 

[spidaman]

So far I have seen Xiaomi Global Roms to be consistent with good behaviour.

 

[KleinBoontjie]

Paid for Monopoly propaganda ad

 

[RudderVator]

Paid for Monopoly propaganda ad

Give Core Group your money!

 

[PaulGherkin]

I also think this is somewhat partly sponsored by ICASA

 

[FiestaST]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1846435146053959910

 

[netstrider]

Gotta really love phones to go through the effort to import them.

 

[lordnokon]

Dell/Hp/Acer/Lenovo/Asus/Gigabyte does not take us seriously.

 

[Nod]

Gotta really love phones to go through the effort to import them.

From the US to my door in 5 days. What effort?

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Yeah right. There's a special smartphone production line for SA so it has unique phones.

 

[Randomwasavailable]

Does this suggest we consider paying almost double to ensure our warranty works as expected? Ja, okay, no thanks.

 

[Nod]

For Pixel phones, and some others, this method works: https://github.com/kyujin-cho/pixel-volte-patch/blob/main/README.en.md
No rooting required.

 

[rh1]

I have imported phones from Amazon. Lasted many years with no issues.

Just double check the specs and verify that it will work in SA and that it is unlocked.

 

[LazyLion]

Never had a problem with Xiaomi, OnePlus or Honor phones by import.
They are great phones.
My son has a Google Pixel phone by import. He hasn't had any problems with it.
Will ask him to check on those features mentioned in the article.

Edit: my son has the Google Pixel 7A, and he says all his features are working just fine including the 5G.

 

[Gudnews]

I always think of the worse case scenario when it comes to warranties. I'll stick to local.

 

[Stephan Maritz]

I have a Xiaomi Mix 4. It is a brilliant phone, but 5G does not work, presumably because of different bands, or it could be the Telkom package I'm on.

It doesn't bother me at all, LTE is fine, and mostly I'm on wifi.

What I didn't think of, is that there are no phone covers available. I have to buy them on Wish.