On Sun, 7 Oct 2012, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
The other concern with non AU stock (grey imports) is that the software on the phone itself could be a problem,
That's not a problem if you plan to re-flash the phone yourself. As an aside one issue is that the OS build seems to have the emergency number hard-coded. My Samsung Galaxy S running Cyanogenmod will call 112 while locked but not 000, my telco (Virgin on the Optus network) doesn't route 112 calls. The fact that my Galaxy S was bought locally wasn't relevant, it was the source of the CyanogenMod image that was the problem.
also branding of the phone and different chips/features. I have a Samsung Galaxy S3, needless to say it is AU stock without carrier branding of any kind (not just unlocked). It has quad-core cpu and 1GB ram -- other models have dual-core and 2gb ram and different radios.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_S_3 According to Wikipedia you must have the international version, the AU version has 2G of RAM. Kogan also sells a model with only 1G of RAM. I agree that paying more for double the RAM could be a good idea, although I have yet to find a great need for more than 384M.
There are lots of variations, LTE radio is another variation.
The Galaxy S3 which is offered by Virgin mobile only supports 3G. The one Kogan sells supports Telstra NextG as well as 3G. Do you know how to get a Galaxy S3 in Australia with any LTE support? Can you suggest a good Australian supplier who has a price similar to the $499 for a Galaxy S3 from Kogan? http://www.mobicity.com.au/phones/smartphones/android.html Mobicity has the Galaxy S3 for $799 and the Galaxy Nexus for $389. Paying an extra $50 for the Galaxy Nexus might be a reasonable investment, but an extra $300 for the Galaxy S3 seems like a bad deal. http://www.mobicity.com.au/samsung-galaxy-s3-i9305-16gb.html Mobicity's Galaxy S3 supports Telstra LTE. But an extra $300 for the phone and extra expense for the Telstra network is going to cost too much for most people. If I wanted LTE I'd consider getting a LTE Wifi bridge on Telstra pre-paid for when I really need it and just use 3G the rest of the time. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/