Other Canadians: US iPhones have mmWave and cost less. Get US model?

[EugW]

So, now that we know mmWave is not supported in the Canadian iPhone 12 series, and a mmWave frequency auction is happening for Canada next year, and we know that pricing in the US is cheaper, how many of you will be getting a US model?

Any missing frequencies in the US models?

 

[JPack]

If the effort to import is low, then it may be worth considering. But I would say it's largely a "feel good" action rather something practical.

From a practical perspective, mmWave frequency auctions and actual meaningful deployment are two different things. Sub-6/mid-band deployment makes the most sense for carriers from a customer satisfaction, cost, and speed perspective. If carriers have a choice, they prefer and deploy Sub-6 as we've seen globally. The U.S. has a handicap due to federal regulations limiting mid-band deployment, but that's not the case in Canada.

 

[loybond]

I was considering this myself, as many places around the world will be getting mmWave and I'll go travelling as soon as possible. Would be nice to have faster 5G.

According to the CBSA calculator, there isn't any duty on a phone Mace outside of North America. Some websites say there's a 8.5% duty rate, but I'll go with the CBSA. I use crossborderpickups.ca; I think it'll be only $10 to bring it over.
We'd still have to pay sales tax; 13% in my province, and that would be on top of any US sales taxes, which would make it more expensive than buying locally. Is there any way we can buy it online and not pay US sales tax?

I quickly googled to see if we have mmWave and came across an article that said Canada has the second fastest 5g in the world, but no mmWave yet as they're still sorting out who gets the frequencies. Given that I change phones every year, and the state of mmWave in Canada and the rest of the world, I'm not sure if I should I even bother with the logistics of getting it from the US.

 

[Christopher Kim]

This thought had occurred to me too. The fact that they priced the 12 Pro at C$1,399 vs US$999 (when actual FX rate is ~1.32 now, which should be C$1,320), on top of our 13% sales tax rate (vs 0 - 8% in the US depending on state), means we're paying quite a bit more all-in. Was hoping they'd peg it at 1.35, so C$1,350...

I used to travel to NY at least once a month, so may have considered buying in a pre-pandemic world if as @JPack mentions, "effort to import is low". Given state of things, I probably will just buy in Canada.

 

[loybond]

Yeah they've been padding the exchange rate for a while unfortunately. Always around $100+ extra for the Max. What sucks is we're getting a version that misses out on mmWave.

 

[EugW]

Given that I change phones every year, and the state of mmWave in Canada and the rest of the world, I'm not sure if I should I even bother with the logistics of getting it from the US.

Yeah, the issue with me is that I don’t generally upgrade very often. My current iPhone is the 7 Plus.

I’m at 4 years now so I’m due for an upgrade, esp. now that I see occasional pauses when navigating around the OS and launching apps. The phone is fine overall, but the age is starting to show. I was hoping to keep the new 5G iPhone for another 4 years. Mind you, mmWave may be meaningless for 2-3 years here anyway as @JPack suggests, and the bigger concern for me is the camera. I suspect next year’s iPhone 13 Pro Max camera will NOT be improvement over the current camera, so that’s a reasonable reason to buy now.

I guess with the phone now at 128 GB for entry level Pro Max I’m good to upgrade, esp. if we find out it’s 6 GB RAM. If it’s 4 GB I may not bother upgrading. I don’t see the same pauses on my 4 GB iPad Pro 10.5, but nonetheless I wonder if a lot of the pauses I’m noticing with the 7 Plus are related to its 3 GB memory becoming the limiting factor, or at least a combination of the slower SoC with 3 GB plus perhaps slower storage speed.