Charging electrical equipment in Japan

**prince** · 16th April 2008, 10:59 PM

I'm going to Japan in a couple of months and want to bring my mobile phone, ds and MBP. As i understand Japan does not run 240v so would that mean i simply cannot purchase an adapter to plug into the wall socket?

**themacuser** · 16th April 2008, 11:02 PM

Your MBP power adaptor, and probably your other power adaptors are universal voltage. My 12" PB, my N800 and my Motorola v3x all ran fine on their chargers over there with just plug adaptors.

Read the back of the power adaptor and see if it says "100-240V AC" in it.

And my Nikon D40 which I bought over there works fine over here, with a plug adaptor.

**Comet** · 16th April 2008, 11:05 PM

You can either get a transformer here in Australia or get one in Japan. If your power adapter supports 110V, you can just get a plug adapter. MBP is definitely fine. DS is definitely not going to work (My Japanese one doesn't work here in Australia). Mobile phone, if it's Nokia, it should work. Have a look on it and it should say something like 110 - 240v. Since you're going for a couple of months, get a transformer over in Japan that does 240 <-> 110 (if it's bidirectional, you can purchase stuff in japan and still use it in Australia) and take a power board from here. If you get a transformer here, it's additional luggage.

**themacuser** · 16th April 2008, 11:08 PM

Grab a USB charger for your DS, and one for your phone, and charge it off your MBP. Problem solved

**vwl** · 16th April 2008, 11:18 PM

Best to check that your mobile is compatible on the Japanese network. Your handset should be 3G as well as your SIM. I got caught out when I took my 3G phone but didn't realise my SIM was a 2G SIM.

**prince** · 16th April 2008, 11:25 PM

Sweet thanks for the replies guys, the MBP charging station is a very good idea. I will be bringing my mobile phon and buying a SIM card there, so that solves the 2G SIM card problemo!

**Comet** · 17th April 2008, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by prince

Sweet thanks for the replies guys, the MBP charging station is a very good idea. I will be bringing my mobile phon and buying a SIM card there, so that solves the 2G SIM card problemo!

That won't happen in Japan. They don't sell SIM only prepaid, unless you're going to be looking for a postpaid plan, which might cause you problems. They sell prepaid phone packages. You might want to simply grab that whilst you're over there. The only other option is roaming.

**prince** · 17th April 2008, 12:32 PM

Oh well, international roaming it is

**Currawong** · 17th April 2008, 03:01 PM

All power supplies will state the voltages they take. I've never in my life seen a 240V only PSU, so surely just about everything you have with a charger will work fine. Sockets here are the 2-pin US type.

ONLY 3G phones + sim cards will work with international roaming here. The rest of the phone network here isn't compatible with anything else whatsoever. There are no pre-paid mobiles at all. Note that if someone calls you while you're roaming overseas, you'll be paying something like 50c/min to receive the call, and SMS's, at least on 3, are 50c per SMS if sent from overseas. Prepare yourself for a phone bill from hell.

**themacuser** · 17th April 2008, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by Currawong

ONLY 3G phones + sim cards will work with international roaming here. The rest of the phone network here isn't compatible with anything else whatsoever. There are no pre-paid mobiles at all. Note that if someone calls you while you're roaming overseas, you'll be paying something like 50c/min to receive the call, and SMS's, at least on 3, are 50c per SMS if sent from overseas. Prepare yourself for a phone bill from hell.

On that topic, I brought my V3X over when I went, and someone else in the group bought their k610i, both on 3. Both worked great, and it was very handy to be able to ring the other group and in 30 seconds say where to meet

Make sure you disable voicemail, or you will be paying 50c/minute as well if someone calls you and leaves a message.

For calling back here, I took my N800 with $10 of Gizmo credit on it, and I've still go $8.44 of it left (2 cents a minute back to here via VoIP. You could also use an Australian VoIP service and get 10c/min untimed, depending on whatever you want to do.) - all the hotels we stayed in had free net access in the room, via ethernet.

Phone bill when we got back was about $54 for each of us, averaging a very quick call a day

If you plan on making a lot of calls, have a look at this. We were considering it, but we figured that it'd be just as much to use 3 roaming with the volume of calls we'd make:
http://maxroam.com/

**Currawong** · 17th April 2008, 09:47 PM

Oh, also, make sure you disable the auto-update of the phone's clock. That alone gave me $200/month in bills.

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