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Best iPad Mini For International 3G? AT&T? Sprint? Verizon?
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: May 2008
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Hey all;
I know that a lot of people have said that the Verizon iPad 3 was the best for international travel or working with other carriers because of its unlocked SIM slot. But how about the iPad mini? Do the Verizon and Sprint versions have a SIM slot at all? If so, is it unlocked? How about the AT&T version - it must have a SIM slot, but is it unlocked?
Long story short, what's the best iPad mini if I ever want to travel or move overseas?
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Down by the river
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I thought AT&T was the best because they used GSM which is an international cellular standard. Not sure if changing SIMS allows the cellular access method to change and too lazy to google it.
Have you gone to the Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T sites to see what they say?
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
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The AT&T iPad mini is not unlocked.
The VZW iPad mini supports a lot more of the 4G bands used around the world.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: May 2008
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So do the Sprint/Verizon iPad minis actually have a SIM slot at all? I'd assume so from what you said, but I want to be sure.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2003
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Originally Posted by mduell
The AT&T iPad mini is not unlocked.
The VZW iPad mini supports a lot more of the 4G bands used around the world.
Guess things have changed since I last looked at international phones... Thanks for correcting me.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Originally Posted by Nergol
So do the Sprint/Verizon iPad minis actually have a SIM slot at all? I'd assume so from what you said, but I want to be sure.
Of course.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: May 2008
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OK... so, specifically, how about the Sprint version? I'm a Sprint customer, so getting that one would be a good option for me. So we're sure it has a SIM card... is the SIM slot unlocked? Could it use 4G overseas? 3G?
Thanks.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
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You could answer all your questions with a little bit of googling.
The Verizon/Sprint iPad mini supports the following bands:
CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5, 13, 25)
So it will work with 3G GSM and 4G LTE in many countries, but not all.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2006
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If the Sprint one is carrier-locked (I suspect it is, but can't verify at the moment), keep in mind that international data costs will be fairly expensive.
Verizon's international data plans start at $20 for only 200MB data. Just something to keep in mind.
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Sell or send me your vintage Mac things if you don't want them.
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Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Originally Posted by mduell
So it will work with 3G GSM and 4G LTE in many countries, but not all.
To be specific: It will work with 3G GSM everywhere (except the US, if it's locked to a carrier) and LTE in a large number of places. It is missing band 7, which is where all early LTE build outs in Europe is, but EU carriers are switching band 3 from 3G to 4G over time. The transceiver that would have been perfect for Apple, WTR1605 with support for band 7 (and one more slot in the lower frequency band), wasn't quite ready in time. Samsung is making an update of the Galaxy S3 based on that chip now, specifically to enable usage of band 7 in Europe. I wonder if Apple will make a mid-cycle update as well, or if we will be stuck with the spotty LTE support for a full generation.
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The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
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Dedicated MacNNer
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Great stuff guys. One more question: That puts the Europe situation in perspective, but how about Japan?
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Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2000
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That's what band 1 is for - apparently the carriers in Japan use LTE on that band. Band 1 is the primary 3G GSM band that was the first built out in Europe (with band 3 as the secondary band, repurposed from GSM as demand shifted), so all the old 3G phones only support band 1. It will be some time before Europe's carriers start shifting that to LTE. They still haven't bothered shifting anything off the primary GSM band (band 8) to anything else, despite it having much better coverage.
The LTE band situation is the most confusing I've seen in mobile. This is the downside with GSM becoming a global standard - back when it was local to Europe, there was one primary band and eventually a second band added when the first got crowded. According to Wikipedia, there are now 44 different band definitions for LTE. Good luck trying to support that with one phone.
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The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
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