Buying a mobile phone in uk as a gift to Ukrainian girl, any problems?

[UkGraham]

I want to buy my Ukrainian GF a new mobile phone, I assume she only has to put her sim card from her old phone in it and it should work ok.
Mobile phones here are a lot cheaper in Uk because they are subsidised by the phone companies here, but not in Ukraine I am led to believe
Does anyone know if I am allowed to do this as I read they are clamping down on "grey" imports.
Obviously I don't want to get her in any trouble and I'll take a chance on it being taken off me in customs.
Any advice will be welcome thanks

[Kuna]

Graham,

I can't comment (much) about customs and whether they will let it go through because I went through the gates without any hassle at all.  I've heard of others though that have issues at the gate but it doesn't seem as common today as it might have been in the past.  Keep in mind that rather than confiscation they're more likely to "tax" you on the way through.   

Something I would caution you about though is to make sure the phone is not SIM locked.  In Oz subsidised phones are locked to only use the provider's SIM cards. While you can get them "unlocked" it's a bit of a pain.

If you do this remember to take her a power converter too.

Kuna

[Leslie]

Kuna is correct.  You must make sure the phone you buy is "unlocked".  I think you will find that new unlocked phones are more expensive in the UK than in Ukraine.  The cost however is imaterial compared with your girlfriend choosing her own phone.  Mobile phones are fashion statements.  Something like an LG "Shine" but that will set you back around £200..

[UkGraham]

Thanks Kuna,
I took my own phone last time without problem, I think as long as I don't wrap in in gift wrapper I should be ok. I'll make sure that it it's not locked to any network first thanks for that advice.

[lawman65]

I made the mistake of sending my girlfriend a cell phone from America, because she is arriving here soon ,and I wanted her to call me from the airport. I used FedEx and when it got to Kiev, they wanted $400.00 USD before she could have it. Customs is outrages in Ukraine or was it something else? Anyway, she got pissed off and told them to send it back. Which of course they did...three weeks later, and $100.00 extra for shipping. It seems that they used kilos instead of pounds so grand total came out to  $198.00. Instead of the original 2lbs which cost me $98.00. They used 2 kilos which equaled to 4.4 lbs. = 198.00 I think they did it on purpose. I'm sure they know how their business operates when sending merchandise back to a country of origin.

[UkGraham]

I think the best thing for me to do is not to spend too much on one, you can get decent nokia phones for about £25 in sales and unlock them for about £3. That would be good enough for calling and texting and then if customs take it off me it wouldn't be that bad and if it doesn't work with her sim card I can use it myself as a spare.
Thanks for the replies guys.

[lawman65]

speaking of phones, I need a new or another company that deals with long distance calling to Ukraine, (Kiev area) The one I was using raised their rates to .13 cents a minute.

[DKMM]

I use idt global access.  I call a 800 number from my cell and then dial russia.  very cheap. 

[andrewfi]

A phone is like jewelry.

If you cheapskate it then you will downgrade yourself in her eyes.

As Leslie noted, let her choose. No good will come of imposing some secondhand cheapymobile on your penfriend.
If you want to make her happy then ask her which phone she wants and how much money it'll cost. Send the money.

Better yet, go over and buy the phone with her whilst you are together. You will get better value for the the deal that way.

Actually, if she is asking (hinting) about a phone then you have likely got an old fashioned girl. It seems the current tribute gift of choice, from swain to bint, is a new pair of breasts. A mobile phone is sooo 2001.

Really, you will shoot yourself in the foot with your plan to cheapskate this matter.

[Scorpion]

If you buy in UK how can she send sms in russian? because the button wont have russian letters on them

[DKMM]

Every RW I've SMS'd with will type russian in latin letters.  But that is a rather limited subset of 3.

[Shadow]

Do you know what kind of phone she has now ? It might be a newer model as you intend to buy for her. When I met her my fiancee used one of the latest models Sony Ericsson.

If you want to make her a real nice gift..
http://www.vertu.com/homepage.jsp?lang=en
or buy a cheap Russian phone..
http://www.cryptogsm.ru/

Perhaps you can get one of those with some operator discount.

[Wayne B]

I just wanted to tell ya'll that Anna's phone from Kharkov works here in Texas just fine.....of course it cost more money per call/text. She did not have to change anything in order for her phone to work.....We did have a problem with her charger, but we were able to use my European converter to charge her phone....boy was I scared to plug it in the first time

[Totoro]

No-one here using Skype for SMS/calls? I find it great for SMS, they cost a lot less than they would if I used my cell phone, I can use my PC keyboard to type (^_^), and they show up as sent from my phone, so no misunderstanding.
Maybe it's a bit less good for long-distance calls. I tried a couple times, and while we had good audio quality with PC to PC calls, when talking PC to phone my girl couldn't hear me well enough...

[Bruno]

No-one here using Skype for SMS/calls?

I use http://www.umc.ua/eng/sendsms.php ... Good for Jeans, UMC, Golden Telecom, and Wellcom ( in Ukraine )... it is free... of course, when you girlfriend receive the message, they have add a publicity message at the end of your message...

[Kuna]

I send SMS to a Kyivstar phone by sending an email to:

380XXXXXXXXX@sms.kyivstar.net

X = the Ukr number

Free, quick and easy, and the only option for an Australian phone to a Kyivstar phone that I can find.

If anyone else in Oz uses an Australian carrier to send SMS to a Kyivstar phone in Ukraine I'd love to know which carrier you use.

Kuna

[Pike]

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