Relocating To Canada...To Buy Or Not To Buy?

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hiya. i'm a UK nurse working here in London and i'm basically awaiting my "eligibility" status from CARNA in Alberta. my question might not be related to nursing itself. i've heard in Canada that the voltage on a household is 110v compared to 220-24-v in the UK. as regards mobile phones or laptops (or any gadget that i will need) would you advice me buying one over here or in Canada?

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

From someone who has just moved. Laptops and computers you should be able to buy new adapters and have no problems (pc should be dual power and usually states on it). Mobile phones are cheap enough but you can charge them up using a plug adapter, the way mobile phones work is different here to the UK and you pay for incoming calls and text messages. We bought our HD TV with us but was unsure whether we could watch TV on it but thankfully we can but not always a guarantee, if ordinary TV then you definitely can't watch TV as they do not use PAL like the UK. All other electrical stuff we didn't bother with and bought over here.

Hope this helps and any other questions feel free to ask or pm

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It is obvious that a 220-v electrical appliance can not be plugged into a 110-v electrical outlet. An option is to buy a converter with the instrument. This may not be cost-effective and can make the appliance too cumbersome for use.

I think it will be more economical and less stressfull o purchase those equipments here in Canada

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I'd buy the cell phone here. Yup, that's what we call mobile phones. You need to change providers and most through in a phone for free when you sign up for a very costly plan. (Cell phone charges are very sore topic of conversation over here)

Household stuff, I wouldn't buy new on the thought of moving here. Most manufactureres won't honour the warranty once it's taken out of the country of purchase. People have problems with stuff they bought in the US when it goes wrong and even though it's for sale here the warranty is invalid.

New country, new stuff has always been the way I've looked at it.

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I belive all European Cell/moblie phone use GSM network technology, must Canadians phones use CDMA technology with the exception of Rogers. So you phone will on;y work with one provider.

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Specializes in med/surg.

There is another website that deals with all this stuff that SD introduced me to - www.britishexpats.com - it really does have some very valid & valuable general advice & is well worth checking out.

Between that site & this one you won't have many questions left! If you do there's plenty of people to help on both!

To the mods - I also referred someone on there to here & I've seen them post too!! So I'm being fair!:D

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my Sony Ericsson K850i is unlocked and i'm presuming Canada uses also GSM/Edge and 3G so i can in theory bring this over and buy a pre-pay/pay-as-you-go SIM right?

i'm also planning to buy a laptop in Dell. mainly for the the built-in Wi-Fi to surf the net. so i guess Wi-Fi here in the UK is "similar" (in terms of the system and "how-it-works",etc.) to Wi-Fi in Canada right?

what say you guys?

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Dell, hmm. Rhymes with Hell.

I'd really check the warranty on that one...

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

We have had no problems using wireless in Canada with our laptops we have had since the UK. I even used mine in the airport when returning after house hunting. What you have to think about if you have any problems with a new laptop/PC and wasn't bought in that country will they sort it out. Have seen laptops cheap enough in Walmart. We bought Pay as you go phones over here and to be honest hardly use them and you have to buy credit every 30-90 days depending on credit regardless if you have any left. We discovered this the hard way when DH went to Calgary and found his cell not working. I had to buy credit to put on.

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how is it going for you?

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ive decided not to sell my SE K850i as i think it would work in Canada. maybe buy a pre-paid/pay-as-you-go SIM temporarily. as for the laptop i am currently selling my desktop pc and will be buying (if i can) a laptop pc so i can atlleast bring it there; i'm aware of the voltage and everything but for me i can't survive without a cellfone/mobile or a laptop.

what do you think?

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how is it going for you?

currently the only paper i'm lacking is the Verification for Registration Form for my nurse authority in the Philippines which my brother is happy sorting. this week hopefully then i shall maybe count 4-6 weeks from 1 Sept (atleast) for this assessment period to start and end.

i guess i'll be here in the UK till January 2009. do i smell late winter/early spring in Canada? :smokin:

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