Advice on buying a China phone.

[Guest gitf@ce]

Hi... I want to buy my daughter a new phone for her birthday, and she tells me she would like the Goophone i5 when it appears at the end of the month. Another contender is the Hero H2000+. My problem is the apparent risk of ordering from somewhere like Aliexpress. I found a seller who had 287 good feedback, when I checked the detail most of this was made up of 'default' feedback of 4x stars as the buyer had left none! Do any of you have experience good or bad that may help me to decide?

[Guest ChrisPNE]

Hope that helps you. :)

[Guest gitf@ce]

Thanks for bringing that to my attention... just need to wait for the quad cores to show up at the end of the month now.

Edited October 20, 2012 by gitf@ce

[Guest aaroNiGHTS]

The quad core specification might be completed at the end of the month, but because Mediatek is a fully fabless business, it'll be a little while before the silicon actually gets pressed.

As a general rule, I would recommend sticking with a non-clone brand for a phone out of China. It's very difficult to even be sure if one Clone device is the same as another. Often the molds are reused for a range of devices, some performing better than others. In that article I link to devices I've had some degree of experience with and with stores I've used before. I can recommend those devices as they perform well, especially for the price range! If you're after a 4" device I would really go for the Jiayu G2 - check out my review for the specifics. Short of it: The screen is stunning :)

[Guest gitf@ce]

Thanks for the reply aaroNiGHTS... I agree with you totally, and I've now read all your reviews and comments on the various phones etc... The issue I have is that my teenage Daughter really wanted an iPhone 5 to replace her Blackberry 9700. Being an exemplary father I said NO!... just the thought of the cost makes me break out in a cold sweat. My compromise was that I'd find an alternative Android option. I thought the Experia S would do nicely but she hates the look of it, in fact anything that doesn't look like an iPhone... I'd love to buy the G2 but it hasn't passed the teenage tantrum test! Have pity on me... :P

Edited October 20, 2012 by gitf@ce

[Guest blueboy11]

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice, and as I think many people will be interested in the topic - with Xmas coming up etc. I thought I should add my experiences, as I've just took the plunge and bought from China.

A interesting site is etotalk.com - I bought a Newman N1 for myself and a Zopo Z900 leader for the missus from there - you can pay a bit extra to etotalk and they will root the phone and stick on a rom for you (in my case a uk english rom).

I also asked for cases and protector screen for both phones, the Zopo case is a cracker and actually replaces the original back of the phone, and has a lid to protect the 5.3" screen.

You can specify delivery options - I chose DHL, this cost me £30 ish for the 2 phones (sent marked as a gift in one box).

Delivery took 5 days and this included DHL holding up the phone for a day in Glasgow as I got stung £25 for a customs charge.

Still two cracking phones for £370 - I found that all the sites at the end of the day come to around the same cost, just that some mask their "free shipping" cost in the actual phone cost.

Was keen to buy from a reputable seller/site and have no complaints - and have two phones ready to go without having to worry about rooting, or understanding how to do a recovery on a chinese language device.

Good comms all the way from etotalk (you have to signup to the site but the transaction was done through PayPal, and I found everything spot on) and DHL.

This may sound like a advert for etotalk - it's not - but I thought anyone wanting a easy to use site, that modded the phone for you - would be interested.

Hope this is of use to some - as earlier posters say, I would stick to well known brands and do a bit of research - but I found it well worth the plunge! :mellow:

[Guest sassi9240]

Looking for some good web-site which have good reputation.Check the Alexa rank...

[Guest gitf@ce]

Thank's everyone for your input. I finally got my own way and the Xperia S is coming tomorrow... :D

I may just buy myself a nice >5" China phone before Christmas though.

[Guest everythingalright]

Hope you are lucky with your china-phone. I ordered myself a phone at focalprice and i had no problems. If you are looking for recommendable china-phone resellers, you can check the comparison at

http://www.chinese-android-phones.com/reliable-shops-2/

 

....I think you can buy your phone without worries at the shops with a rating of more than 7.

Edited November 13, 2013 by everythingalright