dear karhoe,

Mostly at Asia and Europe, we use GSM900/1800 and u can find 2 systems at the Americans (N & South), thats CDMA 2000 1x and GSM 1900, so if u wanna go to Americans, make sure u hv triband.

However this world is not prefect withotu Japan's and Korea's systems. Both countries use different systems from the rest of the world.

Korea use CDMA 2000... some countries like THailand,m HK and China, if u use their CDMA services, they can roam to Korea....

However Japan is totally different.... Japan has 3 systems...
WCDMA by Vodafone Japan (now Softbank Japan), PDC (similar to GSM but on 1500MHz) by Docomo and also Docomo's own WCDMA format called FOMA...

Those handset u saw is probably from Vodafone Japan... It only can use Vodafone UIM... it GSM bands are for roaming only... if u insert any GSM SIM inserty... it wont work... trust me....

Japan dun hv GSM at all.... ok!!!

really? how much u got the sharp? u bought it at Japan or KL?