My wife and I are going to NZ at the end of the month and I've been frantically preparing for our departure. I have one question that I'm still pretty hazy on: what, exactly, is the AC voltage in NZ? One book will say 220, another will say 230, and so on. Furthermore, if I want to use my laptop that's rated up to 220 volts, will I be risking a meltdown if I plug into a 230 volt outlet? In other words, is there a huge difference between 220 and 230?

Voltage in NZ is variously reported as 220v or 230v, just as US voltage is variously reported as 110v or 115v. Either way, I can speak from personal experience that my auto-sensing laptop power supply automatically switched to its 220v setting and my computer worked just fine for over 5 months. I also had a camcorder battery charger with a manual button to switch between 110v and 220v - that charger also worked fine during the same period. Have a great time and don't worry about your laptop!

All you will need to get is an inexpensive plug adapter that allows you to plug your U.S. plug into an NZ outlet. The two flat prongs are parallel in the U.S., but in NZ/Oz they are at about a 30 degree angle to each other, like this: / \

The grounding prong is in the same place for either country.

Hi:

Further to ALF's posting, I had an Australian plug adaptor but it didn't fit the NZ outlets but I was able to pickup an AU-NZ adaptor there cheap (at 'The Warehouse', looks like NZ's WallMart) and 'daisy chained' them with no problems.

Later,

Z

The Voltage in New Zealand is 240volts and is same as Australia. Incidentaly the plugs are the same for the two countries. Most camcorders these days adust automaticaly for the different voltages