August/ September Pinebook Pro, PineTab and PinePhone shipping thread
(08-31-2020, 03:48 PM)Michael Arthur Long Wrote: Supposedly, any electronic import here that has radios(even standard Bluetooth/WiFi) needs a SIRIM cert, otherwise you'd need to pay RM100 for them to take a look at the specs sheet and approve it. We don't take FCC or CE.

tl;dr
I've received my Pinephone on last Friday(2020-09-11). Phone was in customs for about a week. In total I paid around RM140 extra(33.71$ or 13-14 Big Macs locally) for import fees.
  • RM40 for a special approval permit(required to import devices without SIRIM)
  • RM46-ish for customs fees and RM53 for DHL to do it(~RM100 total)
More details:
If anyone else in Malaysia ever needs a SIRIM clearance; DHL contacted me when the phone reached customs and I had to make an application on https://ecomm.sirim.my/
Some notable documents needed were
  • Specs page from the wiki
  • Invoice (The one emailed from PINE64 wouldn't be enough, you'll have to use the Paypal one as well)
  • User Manual
  • Product type(code made/used by SIRIM): RFEI
Biggest hurdle was finding the right product code. But in my case I've selected "RFEI", which would classify it as

Quote:RFEI - GSM 850/900/1800/1900/3G(900/2100)/LTE(850/900/1800/2100/2300/2600(B7/B38)/ISM MOBILE STATION (WITH PDA)

The problem was they had a ton of codes and it's a huge mess. I've seen multiple codes with the exact same description(with minor differences, like no brackets or added spaces).
But generally, phones are usually classified as "MOBILE STATION (WITH PDA)" and this was the closest I could find that had the same bands.
Took a day or two to get it approved I've sent the permit to DHL and paid the import fees a few days later once the phone was cleared from customs.

Alternatively, you could pay ~RM300(quoted by DHL) to pay an agent to handle everything.

Note: This does not mean the phone is certified by SIRIM. If anyone wants to import the PinePhone (or the PineTab, anything with a radio) you'll have to go through the same process I did. This is to get a special approval permit to import a device without a SIRIM certification. To quote the permit

Quote:Notwithstanding the product has been granted with Special Approval, the said product cannot be purported as in full compliance . The applicant shall take full responsibility for any potential risk resulted from the product if the product fails to operate according to the allowed frequency band and specification that can cause non-compliance(s) but not limited to frequency interference, safety impairment, malfunction or harm to users ,networks, other communications product, etc.


Messages In This Thread
Importing to to Malaysia; my experience - by Michael Arthur Long - 09-13-2020, 01:41 AM

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