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Categories: Apple, Featured, iPhone, South Africa

Importing the iPhone 5 – The SA Experience

Published by on Oct 5th, 2012, 21 Comments

After receiving 2 iPhone 5′s with the model A1429, one black and one white with objective to sell one to offset the costs of buying a phone out of contract.

I brought them in via pre order in the UK and then got a friend to Fedex them to me (mistake as this was pretty expensive, with shipping and duties.+-R2500 extra).

So if you’re planning on going this route for the iPhone 6, get a friend to fly down with them hidden in his suitcase.

So, on to choosing which one to use, I opted to use the white one based on the following reasons.

  • After reading numerous posts and playing with a friends black version  it is prone to chipping and scuffing.
  • The white one seemed a little naff, but hey I am a metro sexual I can handle it!
  • All my previous iPhones garnished the white finish and I felt comfortable moving into this realm.
  • The white one was a 32gig and the black one was a 16gig (’nuff said)

The way users are dealing with these nicks, chips and scratches on the black painted metal is to draw on it with a black marker or (US brand name) Sharpie.

At first I followed some blogs on how to adapt your SIM. There were suggestions of sanding the Micro sim down so that it would be 18% thinner than the normal SIM, however this is not necessary as the regular SIM thickness will work.

Follow the online guides and tricks or, if you have a nano SIM punch that will work too.
CA cell or Altech cellular at Sandton and Nicol-way have a SIM punch, however they charge R350 to punch your SIM card. Quite a rip off in my opinion as it’s pretty easy to cut.

There are numerous nano SIM punch online retailers that will ship you one for under $10 in a week. Google it.

Both the A1429 and A1428 were tested with the Vodacom SIM and had issues with data, for example you would get Edge then no edge, or if you reset network settings and restarted 3G would appear, then disappear. Vodacom has not approved this yet, so lets hope they fix it. The MTN experience , on the other hand was seamless, (to paraphrase Steve) everything just works.

I have requested access to MTN’s LTE trial, and as soon as this has been granted I can give a little feedback as to the experiences and speed tests.

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Comments

  • Joe
  • http://www.facebook.com/brennan.babb Brennan Babb

    Nano sim cutter plus sim adapters $7.70 plus shipping. Ships in 24 hours.
    http://www.ahappydeal.com/product-100178.html I have used them and am in fact awaiting delivery.

  • Joe

    Well played! Thanks for sharing! Busy ordering mine right now!

  • Louis

    Wow, you have managed to do better than most. Nobody I’ve spoken to for the last 6 months has been able to get a stable 3G connection on MTN for more than 15 minutes using ANY device.

  • Nick Cooke

    Vodacom has made head way and the network is working perfectly now in certain areas but we need to give em time to roll out. Im on A1429 and i go from 3g to edge and back up with no issues.

  • George

    I have had the same issue on vodac with my i5 since I got to SA 2 weeks ago. I was not getting any data. And I was using a micro sim that I cut self. Early this week I got a vodacom nano sim but that did not fix the problem. I have only just started getting data as of last night. But I comes and goes

  • Nick Cooke

    @george. Try and reboot that phone. If your in Jhb it looks like Vodacom have sorted out. What model do you have A1429 or A1428? I’m not having any issues.

  • Darryl

    My iPhone 5 is working very well now with 3G. I think it’s working properly in jhb

  • RONNIE JENKINS

    You guys are behind the times, Vodacom already has nano sims available. I did a sim swap at a dealer in KZN

  • Brennan Babb

    A sim swap costs you 100+- bucks, and the sim cutter is cheaper plus you can do all your friends sims too

  • Dolby

    Pathetic. He in the UK, the networks are handing out the new nano sims free of charge. Just walk into store or request one online and it be posted out free. Sim swap either done thru a call centre or also online. Just a bloody excuse for vodafom to charge a hundred bucks for what costs them max R5

  • http://www.facebook.com/brennan.babb Brennan Babb

    If you don’t want to wait, do what I did use these guys to cut yours down: http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/apple/iphone/printable-guide-for-cutting-microsim-to-nano-sim-for-iphone-5/

  • http://www.bandwidthblog.com Minnaar Pieters

    Got one.

  • http://www.facebook.com/brennan.babb Brennan Babb

    NEw Sim cards on prepaid with a number cost under R1 but to do a sim Swap …relatively expensive

  • Kevin

    So which model would you advise for South African MTN Network? A1428 (gsm) or A1429 (CDMA) or A1429 (gsm)? Thanks

  • Niks

    my iPhone is on 3G for more than 3/4 the day.

  • http://www.facebook.com/brennan.babb Brennan Babb

    GSM A1429 will support both Voda and MTN. The others will still work but not for LTE

  • e

    I have the option of importing an iPhone 5 from the USA. Will one of the available models (currently locked into either AT&T, Verizon or Sprint) work on Vodacom locally?

  • dali

    Hi

    I am selling the white Apple iphone 5 64GB for only R9600

  • http://twitter.com/phatcatbrett Brett Levy

    Let me know when it arrives and I can come get mine cut :)

  • iPhone 5 seeker

    Hi. do you still have stock?

http://www.bandwidthblog.com/wp-content/themes/cnnetwork