I know its a long way off yet but quick enquiry as to whether our electrical goods can be used there. I appreciate there is a difference in the electricity supply but can you get plug adapters so that they work?

Need a new laptop but don't want to buy one, if its only for the next few months (hoping here I know).

There is an excelent wiki covering virtually everything...

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Compat...f_Goods-Canada


Most laptop suppies are auto switching, all you need is the local cord to plug into the transformer, and they are not hard to find.

Looking on Dell, it doesn't provide that level of detail. So worse comes to worse I would have to get a transformer, for when I am not working off the battery. Are they easy to buy out there and how big are they now? Had one for a US piece of equipement once, it was huge.

I have a dell notebook...the charger / transformer/ AC adapter plug in thing switches automatically. If you look at it it will say something like 100-240V~50-60Hz on the label.... in short it doesnt care what power you feed it. In my last post "transformer" just meant the regular AC charger adaptor that comes with the computer.

All you need to find is either a cable to go from the electrical outlet to the figure 8 shaped socket on the power supply, or an adapter to go from a UK 3 pin plug to a US 2 pin.

By there portable nature notebooks are the one thing with no compatability issues.

That's good news but forking out the cash for one isn't!

How much are they there?. My Dell...all be it a low level one(Pentium dual core 1525), was about $600 from a major chain here. Its not fancy, but it does all I want it too. It might be cheaper to wait?

Or just cut off the plug and fit a Canadian one for about $2.99

BTW - you should NEVER fit a UK 3 pin to a US 2 pin - it must be a US 3 pin, otherwise it is no longer earthed.

Well it sounds like they are cheaper but I may still have to buy it here, need to store documents etc.

As all the power supplies are isolated and only two power lines go into the thing, in this case no harm would come from using a two prong adaptor. But I suspect that any adaptor for a three pronger would be a three pronger anyway... so its probably a moot point.

OK. However my laptop does have an earth wire, so when I cut off the UK plug I needed to replace it with a 3 pin US plug. I agree if there are only 2 wires, a 2 pin plug would be fine.

A laptop with an earth wire? Thats very odd. Usually they are a low voltage circular input, 19V dc or there about...

Well, it has one, so I'm using it!

One time when I was visiting Toronto I forgot my power supply. I bought a generic, adjustable voltage replacement for about $30 from a little computer place on the Danforth. Problem solved. Worked, and still does, like a charm.

check these out.... http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...ter/index.html

we brought 2 laptops - both worked fine with the adaptors, all we did was use a travel adaptor for both., - Infact we still do.

I brought my desktop computer / monitor and printer from the UK, all work just fine - my computer /monitor had a switch to 120v and i put both plugs through a 6 plug universal adaptor. I run my printer through a transformer ( also via a universal adapter 6 plug ) with my camera dock and other bits all work perfectly fine.

We brought our xbox with uk tv in the shipping, run that through a transformer and all work great - the xbox is chipped so plays both Uk and NTSC games - the transformer cost about GBP 40 so well worth it.