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Moving to London For One Year

N

NakaNaka

Diamond Member
Hey guys. I'm moving to London for one year and have a couple of technology related questions.

One) I know the power sources work differently and I will need to buy adapters. Will my products run at their full capacity with the adapters? (I'm mostly thinking abotu my Powerbook and other computer related products)

Two) I have an American Xbox 360. Would it be possible to bring it over and hook it up to a British TV or do they use different connectors (assuming I convert the power adapter). Will this work just as well with a power adapter?

Three) Is there anyway to hook up my Xbox 360 to my laptop monitor?

Four) What is the best cell phone company in London. Vodafone? O2?

Answer any or all if you can. Thanks so much.

-Phil
 
Most adapters are universal, 50-60 hz 11-240 volts. For any that are, all you need is a simple pinout converter. This almost certainly covers the powerbook and the 360.

With video connectors, you run into the PAL/NTSC problem, unless you are using VGA or DVI/HDMI(possibly even then, I'm not a home theatre guy). You can connect a 360 to a laptop with a video capture card; but some cards introduce lag, ask around.

As for the phone, no idea.
 
I got a connection from O2 while I was there for a few weeks, not as long as you'll be there so that could be different. I know that with O2 and some other companies, if you pay monthly instead of prepaid and your bill comes to something like 30 pounds per month or more, they'll give you free broadband access at your home, pretty good deal IMO.

Are you staying in London or somewhere near it?
 
For the powerbook, Apple sells a World Travel Kit that simply plugs in to the power brick. Their bricks take 110-240 V at 50-60 Hz, so all you need is that kit, which will come with all the heads you need for most places in the world. For putting video from your Xbox 360 to the Powerbook, might I suggest a EyeTV EZ from elgato. I have one of their older EyeTV Wonders, and it had zero latency.

Be forewarned though, that since the EyeTV EZ has zero latency, it stresses your CPU since their is no hardware encoding (this should only be a real issue when recording TV shows).

For other hardware, you can buy a voltage converters (another site for more ideas, but these are for continental Europe, not the UK. The UK uses it's own weird bulky plug), which will turn the 240 V 50 Hz in to 110 V 60 Hz. You can get them at various watt ratings, so you could connect more power straining devices to them. Make sure you give yourself a buffer though, so if you calculate you only need, say 100 W, get 200 W, this way you have a little leg room. The price difference should be minimal. Remember, you want a step down transformer. I have no experience with that website, just found it with a quick google search to give you some ideas.

Good luck on your trip, and might I ask what will you being doing across the pond for a year?
 
For overall coverage (countrywide) Vodafone is probably the best, as services like o2 can have little ot no signal in rural areas, but if you mostly stick to London then pretty much any carrier will do you fine.
Orange have started to offer home broadband with mobile contracts (though limit to 2GB month download I think).
o2 probably have the best tariffs if you get it online (from their website). Be wary of going to "other" suppliers who offer cashback/rebates as they can be a pain and if you're only there for a year it won't really be worth it.

Check your laptop power adapter for the voltages it accepts, if it does 230/240v you should be fine.

Most TV's here support both PAL and NTSC I believe, so you might not have an issue with an Xbox 360, but we have the standard connectors, s-video, component, dvi, vga, HDMI, SCART etc etc.
 
I'll be staying in actual London, right on the South Bank. I'll be studying abroad at a university there for the entire year.

Thanks for the input everyone.
 
Originally posted by: NakaNaka
I'll be staying in actual London, right on the South Bank. I'll be studying abroad at a university there for the entire year.

Thanks for the input everyone.
Click to expand...

What's the purpose of studying abroad in a country in which you're a native speaker of the same language?
 
Originally posted by: NakaNaka
Hey guys. I'm moving to London for one year and have a couple of technology related questions.

One) I know the power sources work differently and I will need to buy adapters. Will my products run at their full capacity with the adapters? (I'm mostly thinking abotu my Powerbook and other computer related products)

Two) I have an American Xbox 360. Would it be possible to bring it over and hook it up to a British TV or do they use different connectors (assuming I convert the power adapter). Will this work just as well with a power adapter?

Three) Is there anyway to hook up my Xbox 360 to my laptop monitor?

Four) What is the best cell phone company in London. Vodafone? O2?

Answer any or all if you can. Thanks so much.

-Phil
Click to expand...
1) If you get the adaptor, it will work fine. GB has different outlets compared to the rest of europe, but they are on 220V. Check the labels on powersupplies, a lot of them can handle both 110 and 220V
2) The xbox most likely won't work, in europe they use the PAL encoding for video signal
3) You need a usb VIVO card for that to work
4) no clue
 
Originally posted by: mrkun
Originally posted by: NakaNaka
I'll be staying in actual London, right on the South Bank. I'll be studying abroad at a university there for the entire year.

Thanks for the input everyone.
Click to expand...

What's the purpose of studying abroad in a country in which you're a native speaker of the same language?
Click to expand...

parents are paying?
 
Originally posted by: mrkun
Originally posted by: NakaNaka
I'll be staying in actual London, right on the South Bank. I'll be studying abroad at a university there for the entire year.

Thanks for the input everyone.
Click to expand...

What's the purpose of studying abroad in a country in which you're a native speaker of the same language?
Click to expand...

Exposure to a different culture?
 
By the way, drop me a PM and I'll give you the number for a service to make calls to the US for something like 7 cents or maybe pence per minute, I forget which currency but there's no CC needed and that's a pretty good rate IMO.
 
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
By the way, drop me a PM and I'll give you the number for a service to make calls to the US for something like 7 cents or maybe pence per minute, I forget which currency but there's no CC needed and that's a pretty good rate IMO.
Click to expand...

Cough Skype Cough 🙂
 
Originally posted by: NakaNaka
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
By the way, drop me a PM and I'll give you the number for a service to make calls to the US for something like 7 cents or maybe pence per minute, I forget which currency but there's no CC needed and that's a pretty good rate IMO.
Click to expand...

Cough Skype Cough 🙂
Click to expand...
Right, but you'd have to be at your computer for that, right? I haven't explored it a lot so I could be wrong.
 
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
Originally posted by: NakaNaka
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
By the way, drop me a PM and I'll give you the number for a service to make calls to the US for something like 7 cents or maybe pence per minute, I forget which currency but there's no CC needed and that's a pretty good rate IMO.
Click to expand...

Cough Skype Cough 🙂
Click to expand...
Right, but you'd have to be at your computer for that, right? I haven't explored it a lot so I could be wrong.
Click to expand...

Skype Phones FTW (even though I don't have experience with them, I know they exist).
 
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
Originally posted by: NakaNaka
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
By the way, drop me a PM and I'll give you the number for a service to make calls to the US for something like 7 cents or maybe pence per minute, I forget which currency but there's no CC needed and that's a pretty good rate IMO.
Click to expand...

Cough Skype Cough 🙂
Click to expand...
Right, but you'd have to be at your computer for that, right? I haven't explored it a lot so I could be wrong.
Click to expand...

Yeah which is fine. I'll be making most of my calls back to the States at night my time anyway.
 
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