Learning about Hungary

Hi everyone! I'm from the states with plans to move to Hungary. What internet provider is best? Also, is it best to bring lap tops and other electronics with us? Thanks very much :>)

Your problem is the frequency and voltage - it's 230V and 50 Hz. 

Most laptops will work no problem as they have universal power supplies.  Just needs a plug adaptor.  Everything in HU uses Schuko sockets (Google it).

Printers are problematic as we use A4 sized paper but many printers will be OK as they are adjustable/universal.

Things with motors and heaters in them (like hair driers, washers, fridges) won't work (unless switchable). 

And North American TVs will be useless as it's a different system.

Radios work fine on FM in theory except the channel spacing is different but digital radio, no chance of that working at all.

Internet providers are all much the same. Depends where you live as to what you can get.  Budapest City - fibre is available to lots of places. Outside main cities, either DSL or Cable.  There are gaps so you might need mobile 4G (more expensive).

thank you very much. As far as electronics go.... are the prices and availability sufficient?  you know should I buy and bring or.... just buy upon arrival . I do appreciate your quick reply....

on target wrote:

thank you very much. As far as electronics go.... are the prices and availability sufficient?  you know should I buy and bring or.... just buy upon arrival . I do appreciate your quick reply....


Rather than keep us guessing, best to say exactly what you want to buy as everything is generally available at a price. 

If you want a police scanner, an oscilloscope, CB radio or an air band transceiver that might be more difficult.

Stuff like mobile phones, tablets, network switches, laptops or PCs or disk drives are of course trivially easy to get.

Your most difficult problem is getting a US keyboard but even that isn't very difficult.

To save confusion, can you carry on with your first post instead creating a new thread with the same title.

on target wrote:

Hi everyone! I'm from the states with plans to move to Hungary. What internet provider is best? Also, is it best to bring lap tops and other electronics with us? Thanks very much :>)


Have you ever been to Hungary? To Budapest? I ask, because if you have then you surely have seen many electronic stores around and about town and what they offer.

Otherwise, I agree with the above, your question is rather vague as to what types of "electronics" you are talking about other than laptops.

But be aware, many replacement items here are actually not cheap, mostly due to a 27% VAT (VAT is like sales tax in the USA). And many electronics are not as "cutting edge" as in other countries. Can take months, or longer, for new products to be readily available in Hungary. Others are only really available here and are not less common outside central Europe (e.g. trying to find a review of a product may be difficult in English).

For details about any specific item, it's cost and availability, the Internet has copious amounts of information at your fingertips. This is how to use it:

1) If you do not speak Hungarian, go to http://translate.google.com, and enter the item name or description of a retail electronic product in English, select the "to" translate option into Hungarian.

2) Then copy and paste that Hungarian name into a price comparison site such as http://argep.hu.