Any disadvantages or issues buying this phone on UK site to use in US?

[Nicholas]

I noticed on the amazon UK website it seems to be a good price and is currently in stock. I just wanted to make sure the phone would work properly if i bought from UK to use it in north amercia on t-mobile.

[Jonas]

Hi @Nicholas, thank you for showing interest in the Xperia 1!

The supported network bands are the same on all 3 "versions" of the Xperia 1, however one of them, the J8170 is specific for the US market and that is not the same version that is available in the UK, that one is called J8110. You can find a list of the support network bands below.

• UMTS HSPA+ 2100 (Band 1), 1900 (Band 2), 1700 (Band 4), 850 (Band 5), 800 (Band 6), 900 (Band 8), 800 (Band 19) MHz
• GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
• LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 46, 66)

I'm not 100% sure if this will cause any unexpected behaviours when using a carrier in the US, but if this specific model is not approved/allowed in their networks (in your case T-Mobile) it won't be that much fun using it. I know it's a bit different in the US when it comes to carriers/operators, at least compared to Europe, so you may want to double check this with T-mobile directly, or with the Local support team in the US that you can reach on the link below.

https://support.sonymobile.com/us/contactUs/

We also do not have a Global warranty, so this is something you will need to ask them about as well, because here in Europe where I'm situated, if the specific model/version is not launched here, you will not be able to have it repaired in warranty. This can of course be different in other markets, but it's always good to check this before purchasing the device.

I hope that helps a bit at least and have a nice weekend!

[iArvee]

I bought mine from Clove and have no problems using it on tmobile (US). However, no VoLTE support is available, since I'm on UK firmware. As Jonas stated, a different model number is to be released here (supposedly containing CDMA support). Unsure if we can flash the US firmware from that model number on to the J8110. I've done this before on the XZP for my dual sim version, but it was rooted then.

XDA has people say that it's possible to flash a different model number, but of course, do it at your own risk.

tl;dr: It'll work on major carriers, except CDMA (verizon). Don't expect VoLTE to work as well.

[Jonas]

Hi @iArvee!

I'm glad to hear that the device is working fine with the network and so on in the US even with the UK version!

I totally forgot about the operator services, such as VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling, so thank you for mentioning this. Most operators/carriers requires the software in the device to be the one meant for the specific market and in this case, the device model is different from the US "version" as well.

Regarding flashing and so on, that is not something that I will be able to assist with, since it can void the warranty, but we have a forum for this that can be reached on the link below.

developer.sonymobile.com

Thanks again @iArvee for the great information and have a fantastic day!