can electrical items bought in the us be used in the UK, like a sony psp?

Question

am going to US and want to buy some electrical items out there as they will be cheaper than the uk. will they work back here?

Answer 1

There are two things you need to look out for:

1) Plug configuration is different. You will need an adaptor which is easy to solve

2) Voltage difference. US standard is 110volts and UK standard to 220 - 240volts. Majority of eletronic appliances now support both standards. However, there are some that do not. Your appliance will blow if pluged into a wrong voltage. In such cases, you will need to buy a step up transformer from your electrical shop to get it working in UK.

In the case of a PSP, I believe the charger supports both US and UK power standards.

Answer 2

The power is no issue, you can get a convertor for a few pounds. The main issue is the games, UK games will probably not run on a US machine. I cant be sure of that but if not it'd be the first console ever where you could play games from one region in another (same thing as dvds).
You also have to consider that if you bring one back and you do get your bag searched then they can charge you import duty on it so you're better off throwing the box away in the USA and carrying it in your hand luggage, pretending you had it when you left the UK. Other than that it should be fine but you're only gonna save about £50 anyway so is it really worth it?

Answer 3

The plug configuration, is because the difference in hz, The U.S. uses 60 hertz(or cycles) as a standard on all electrical devices., The UK, most likely will use 50 hertz,(or cycles) on all their electrical devices, and therefore use different plugs, so you can't plug them in and mess them up....And no, changing plugs won't work....You'll smoke it...Also voltage isn't an issue, any step-up transformer will give you the voltage....Like going from 110 to 220, with a 10% variance,+,or - as an acceptable range...But you will still have the Hz, issue, and nothing is going to change that!!!!

Answer 4

Yes, but you will need not only an adaptor to change the pins on the plugs, but also a voltage adaptor to reduce the UK's 240 volts to the USA's 110 volts, if the appliance cannot do so itself.

Answer 5

Yes, but you need a plug socket adaptor as the ones in the UK have three pins not two as in the US.

Answer 6

oftentimes the smaller digital issues artwork high quality as their power components oftentimes handle something from a hundred-240 volts however the hairdryer won't function. yet than returned, who desires a hair dryer!

Answer 7

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