blackberry from america, can it work in the UK?

My stepfather wants to give me his blackberry -- and it's from america ... will it work in the uk?

You can't bring fruit in from another country! 

Seriously - yes you can, you'd need to get it unlocked and then get a SIM from a UK phone company

http://www.blackberryunlocking.co.uk/

thanks ... you made me laugh, but it did take a minute for me to get it ... lol ...

I'm a bit slow on the uptake tonight ....

What does it say about me that I thought she meant the fruit and took someone else's response to think otherwise.

My recommendation would be to go to the place where your stepfather got the Blackberry (hopefully he got his next blackberry from them too) and ask them if they will unlock it.  Unlocking over here is costly (I was quoted 30 pounds to just to unlock an old cheap Samsung I brought from home).  I've had people unlock them for me for free in the States when I got my plan from them.

That's a really good plan -- he did get it from the same people he got his new one from ... so that's perfect.  I'll try that first.

My recommendation would be to go to the place where your stepfather got the Blackberry (hopefully he got his next blackberry from them too) and ask them if they will unlock it.  Unlocking over here is costly (I was quoted 30 pounds to just to unlock an old cheap Samsung I brought from home).  I've had people unlock them for me for free in the States when I got my plan from them.

Where did you go to get your phone unlocked?  I got my old UK mobile unlocked over here for about £10.  If you go to a retailer (ie T-Mobile, O2, Orange etc) they'll charge you an arm & a leg.  If you go to a market stall / specialty mobile shop (ok, admittedly they may look a bit shady compared to the nice mobile stores in the US), but they'll do 'em quite cheap.  Otherwise, you may want to look into doing it yourself online.

DH had a Motorola he unlocked himself all he needed was his data cable (which came with the phone) and bought an unlock code online.

Personally, before going anywhere to unlock it I would do an internet search on the model regarding unlocking it.  You may just get some good recommendations on places to go as well as if you might be able to buy the code & do it yourself...

Good luck!

Didn't see this mentioned in the thread...the Blackberry will port over well to the UK if it is AT&T (and possibly TMobile USA) because it will have a GSM SIM card.  You may find it harder to bring a Blackberry from Verizon or Sprint because their networks are CDMA and the SIM cards are hardwired into the circuitboard of the phone.  This would make it hard to pop in an O2 SIM into the phone.  Also, while the voice will likely work fine, check the frequency specs for the data component on the phone to make sure it has the european data band.  I don't know what model your stepfather has but maybe due a google search like "blackberry modelname specs" to see if it has the european frequencies.  Hopefully it is a quadband voice/triband data world phone.

I know it's t-mobile that he uses ... and he usually gets the top of the range everything, *giggle* even if he doesn't know what it does!  I will get the model number and see. thanks for the information!