Apple Watch - Where to buy?

[MissMyBike]

I am planning on buying an Apple Watch to use in Mexico with a Mexican cellular provider. I was hoping to buy the watch in the US, but I have heard that the purchase has to be made in Mexico for the Apple Watch cellular service to work with a Mexican provider. Elsewhere I read so long as it is a North American purchase, the Apple Watch would work anywhere in North America. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[DonJuane]

I can't speak to most of this but I will say if at all possible, you need at least an iPhone 6 or newer to work with the US carriers after they dropped 3G support and now require phones with the VoLTE (voice over LTE) which Apple has. Other than the carrier-locked feature where if you purchase a proivder discounted equipment, theoretically the Apple equipment you get in the USA should be identical to that sold in Mexico. The only difference would be any software locks that are in place, while nothing that these locks normally occur when one purchased discounted equipment directly from a carrier.

Otherwise on the subject of VoLTE, many will be shocked to find their Mexico plans not working in the USA. The USA upgrade completed last month where 3G service was discontinued and only 4G-LTE and 5G phones are now supported is going to leave many with old-new Androids and Apple owners with pre-iPhone 6 with a non-working phone upon USA entry. The USA carriers have gone beyond snarky in many areas by demanding that only certain brands of phones be used (e.g. AT&T) and that means even with older phones that have the VoLTE capability and with that meeting the stated demands of the carrier, often the phone is still blocked on the US network. And it's not super easy knowing if your phone is going to work before deprting for the USA. Some like US carriers like T-Mobile provide an online IMEI check facility but AT&T's is so complicated and where you have to actually pretend you are going to sign up or in some cases you may have to give credit card and all the info to get a simple IMEI check. There are work-arounds though like doing the checking from a MVNO like ConsumerCellular for the AT&T check. But since most Mexico chipped phones use T-Mobile, that is the carrier of most concern.

In short, if you are dealing with anything besides an iPhone that is more modern that a "6", there are some concerns when you return to the USA while considering there is a strong possibility your phone will no longer work upon arrival. So for today, the best policy is if you need a new phone and even if you don't you may be forced to buy one when returning to the USA. Thefore, it's best not to buy a phone in Mexico right now if your plan is to use it for any time at all in the future in the USA.

It's such a crazy world right now when it comes to buying new phones. And the Mexico modernization scheme is of no help. For example the government owned Altan Redes wholesaler that was created only a few years ago with a mission to create competition for Slim's TelCel mostly-monopoly has left us with TelCel sold out and Altan Redes gone bankrupt once and recovered, as well as the small caveat that the band 28 they use (700mHz) is a band that was previously used only in Asia and thus missing from most phones in the Western hemisphere. Still even that's not a show-stopper because with the recently announced Mexico cellular service provider alliance with all providers allowing roaming for competing carriers onto their networks (and theirs onto other networks), this provides for the previously "left out in the woods searching for an ALtan Redes tower" group to now roam onto the Telcel network, which at the moment is the norm (that A.R. customers will mostly roam onto Telcel) and this is true since Altan Redes towers are in such few cities (Guatalajara, Leon, Queretaro, etc), it will end up most customers always see their phone roaming onto Telcel and particularly in GTO and SMdA where there are currently no Altan Redes towers. . Telcel would though be a fool to provide the same lightning speeds they provide to their own Telcel branded chip users and to give that same fast service to the Altan Redes cheap MVNO chipped clients in places like GTO or SMdA where there are no A.R. towers. What what you end up with using an Altan Redes reseller chip in Telcel territory is a speed of 3M and slower. So keep this in mind when someone tells you how great that the Altan Redes MVNO carriers are (Walmart, Oxxo, Electra, etc branded phone chips) and that the advertised fast/competitive speeds require Band 28 and only works in cities with properly dispersed nearby Altan Redes towers, which aren't really that many today.

Of course Apple users come out the winner in many instances and it's not that Apple is out to be that robust, it's just the more carrier support they can cram into their phones (meaning the most number of bands or frequencies supported), the more places they can sell without having to make different models for different markets. However, if you want to take advantage of the new Mexico MVNO providers and with that, come up with an Android phone that works in the USA as well as Mexico, you'll likely have to purchase it in the USA where you'll need to look not only for a brand and model that is supported by your US favored carrier (T-Mobile is the default roam-to carrier in the US if you have either Telcel or a Altan Redes chip) but assuming you wish to have full speed capability for the Altan Redes reseller phone chip when you do encounter a city with Altan Redes towers, this will demand band 28 support be included on the new phone. We keep in mind here that while band 28 support is no longer a strict requirement for phones with Altan Redes chips, not having it means in Mexico if there are no Altan Redes with limited geographical A.R. towers around Mexico (the frequent case) you will be roaming onto Telcel where you will be throttled to 3M or slower data speeds (which is in contrast to having both a band 28 phone and being in a city in Mexico with Altan Redes towers, speeds of 70M and up are not uncommon.)

So in short - looking for a new phone in Mexico? If you wish to use it in the USA then I suggest this. If looking for an iPhone make sure it is iPhone 6 or newer. If shopping for an Android, make sure it is supported on the T-Mobile network since Telcel/A.R. users roam onto TMobile when visiting the USA. If shopping for an Android and if you plan now or later to use a Mexico Altan Redes reseller chip in Mexico and you live mostly in Mexico, make sure the Andorid you buy is not only approved and working on the T-Mobile network when in the USA but that it also has support for cellular band 28. With this you should be prepared for some time to come. (Or until some company again changes something LOL.)

[kasugie]

An Apple Watch requires needs an iPhone with cellular service to be activated and continually sync with. You can't even change the time on your Apple Watch after traveling to a different time zone, without syncing it to your iPhone.
We purchased an Apple Watch 4 and reconditioned iPhone 6, and then Telcel Amigo (pay-as-you-go) service. Basically, it works as advertised, with this major caveat and other Apple software license fine print in mind. The second caveat is a lot of the advanced health features of the Apple Watch (like AFib monitoring) haven't been approved by Mexico's equivalent of the FDA, and won't work in Mexico. We haven't tried connecting to a VPN as a workaround, but have verified the features do work while roaming inside the U.S.