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Child Item

Chinese Android Phones 2 - Read First Post!

Digital Solitude

Reusing Thargors OP because it's good

1. Picking a quality brand
Gizchina.com regularly review and announce new devices, and should be your first port of call for looking at devices
DO NOT BUY CLONES
They generally suck, and have a good chance of being destroyed by customs
Here are some quality brands to get you started:

Android phones

Xiaomi
Gionee
INUI
Oppo
Vivo
Meizu
HUAWEI
Lenovo
CUBOT
Xiaocai
Zopo
THL
UMI
JIAYU
ZTE
iOcean
Cube
Elephone
Ulephone
UNI

Tablets
Lenovo
PIPO
JXD
Onda
CUBE
Ainol
Ployer
Freelander
CHUWI
AMPE
Ramos

All that being said, new brands are constantly popping up and not all of them will be bad so don’t write them off until you’ve checked out some reviews from their products!

2. What to Look For:

Next up you’ll be wanting to pick a device, whether that be phone or tablet there are a few thing’s to look out for to ensure you end up with a product that’s really going to meet your expectations.

First up, finding a phone! Our favourite website for finding Chinese androids is www.kimovil.com , its a great website where you can choose a phone from a wide selection based on the specifications that are important to you, you'll get a link to some sellers and a score of out of 10 for numerous aspects to the phone.

There aren't enough regulars here to spoonfeed recommendations to everyone who comes asking "I have €100 what do I buy?", so if you find a phone you like on kimovil and ask us about it, you're much more likely to get an answer, and faster too.

Build quality

This is difficult to decipher without having the device in hand but choosing the right brand is a good start, from there on you’ll want to check reviews and in particular, check out hands-on videos on Youtube which should give a better idea of the overall quality of the device. Mostly chinese devices these days are supringly well built, especially those from the bigger brands so this shouldn’t be too big an issue.

Fake features:

Unfortunately some products, particularly clone products will be advertised with features that they don’t have or are otherwise mis-advertised. Look at for features which seem too good to be true and be sure to check the specification across many different websites. If in doubt then contact the seller.

Poor quality cameras:

If there’s one spec where numbers don’t tell the whole story it’s the camera specs. Often you’ll see phones and tablets advertised with decent sounding camera’s, sometimes with unrealistically high mega pixel counts – if this looks to be the case then walk away, mostly likely the device in question will use some poor quality software trickery to interpolate a lower quality image to a higher resolution giving nothing like the quality stated. In this area there really is no substitute for impartial, third party hands-on write-ups and camera samples so you can see for yourself the actual quality on offer.

Under performing chipset’s

One of the first thing’s you’ll notice when comparing china phones is that they are most often powered by Mediatek in phones and Allwinner or Rockchip for tablets, rather than the usual Qualcomm or Exynos chipsets often found in western phones. This is primarily due to cost as these other chipsets are cheaper and don’t quite offer the same levels of performance you get from a top of the range Qualcomm or Exynos processor, in most cases though they are more than enough for 90% of people.

The best chipset’s to look out for other than the establish Qualcomm and Exynos ones are currently:

Phones
Snapdragon 410
Snapdragon 800
Snapdragon 801
Snapdragon 805
Mediatek MTK6752
Mediatek MTK6732
Mediatek MTK6595
Mediatek MTK6735
Mediatek MTK6753
Mediatek MTK6795

Tablets
Rockchip Rk3188
Rockchip Rk3066
Allwinner A31

If in doubt, check out some benchmark scores to get an idea of performance, bearing in mind that multi-core processors may appear more potent than their true, real world performance – this is especially true of new octa-core proccesors so bear this in mind.

Also be aware that each chipest has its limits so for example the Rockchip Rk3066 is a great chipest for up to 720p resolution but any more than that and you’ll see it struggle, so for want of a better phrase – “courses for courses”.

3. Where to Buy From

Broadly there are two types of place you can purchase your device, marketplace type websites or traditional online retailers.

Marketplace sites

These are websites that essentially act as a platform allowing you direct access to wholesalers and maybe even direct to manufacturers in some cases.

The two best known of these types of websites are:

http://uk.alibaba.com/
http://www.aliexpress.com/

Traditional Retailers

Banggood - http://www.banggood.com/

Pandawill – http://www.pandawill.com/

Dealextreme – http://www.dx.com/

BuySKU – http://www.buysku.com/

Merimobiles - http://www.merimobiles.com/

Honorbuy - http://www.honorbuy.com/

Coolicool - http://www.coolicool.com/

Chinavaison - http://www.chinavasion.com/

Etotalk - http://www.etotalk.com/

Mixeshop - http://www.mixeshop.com

Antelife - http://antelife.com

Minideal - http://minideal.com

IBuyGou - http://ibuygou.com

A number of these sellers have EU warehouses, allowing you to get your items delivered faster, and without any extra customs charges
Sellers with EU warehouses:
DX
Merimobiles
Honorbuy
Coolicool
Antelife
AliExpress Seller
Another Thanks to Spix for his recommendations here.

4. Making Payment

Use PayPal or Escrow

5. Avoiding Import Duty

Changing this as dodging customs is bad, m'kay? You can ask for the price to be marked down.

The formula is (phone price in € times 1.23) and then +€6 through An Post or +€15 through a courier

Final: If your phone is rooted, delete the bloatware, if not, apps such as Framaroot can be used to easily root most devices. A lot of MTK tutorials are universal, so if you've an MTK phone you'd like to root, any tutorial for that chip should work

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Comments

fixXxer

Justwinginit wrote:

Thanks Allyall, I'm on 300msgs and 300txts and 500mb data for â‚¬20(I never use it all lol), but contract up at end of month, so changing to payg and unlimited text and msgs for â‚¬15 a month with 1gb data.

Also if youre buying the phone unlocked check out all the sim free plans because that can save some real money too.

Im on iD and for â‚¬20 it's 100 sms 100 mins 20GB data and 4G.

Justwinginit

Pulled the trigger on the redmi note 2 last night:-) Comes with gel case and screen protector and UK/EU rom with google play installed.....roll on next week:-)

Glen_Quagmire

Justwinginit wrote: »

Pulled the trigger on the redmi note 2 last night:-) Comes with gel case and screen protector and UK/EU rom with google play installed.....roll on next week:-)

Where did you order from and what price?

Justwinginit

A little bit dearer, but seems to be a reputable seller, also prefer uk to china:
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/BLACK-5-5-XIAOMI-REDMI-NOTE-2-MTK6795-OCTA-CORE-ANDROID-2GB-RAM-MIUI7-PHONE-UK-/331683262351?hash=item4d39dcef8f

Glen_Quagmire

Justwinginit wrote: »

A little bit dearer, but seems to be a reputable seller, also prefer uk to china:
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/BLACK-5-5-XIAOMI-REDMI-NOTE-2-MTK6795-OCTA-CORE-ANDROID-2GB-RAM-MIUI7-PHONE-UK-/331683262351?hash=item4d39dcef8f

A little bit dearer as opposed to where?

Justwinginit

Glen_Quagmire wrote: »

A little bit dearer as opposed to where?

Ordering direct from China

PeteSco

myshirt wrote: »

This Elephone P9000 looks good for the price. Getting largely positive reviews aswell. God knows there are some of these phones excellent on paper, and apparently not good at all once you dig that bit deeper.

Only issue with this Elephone is when the hell will it ship at all. Shifting goal posts on the end of this flash sale, seems to be constantly only 2 days left. Concerned also that the spec on it was the subject of many changes. Were talking decacore at one stage even, now octacore.

I believe there are around 2 weeks left. It's coming

I don't really love it though, I'm more interested in the Doogee F7 with the Helio X20.

morgana

PadraigL wrote: »

Have a look at this as my daughter just bought it to replace her motor g which was the first model.
She only has it a day and she loves it. Camera is very decent. Back camera is 13mpx and front is 8mpx. Supports 4g 800MHz. WiFi is better or stronger than the motor g, it pick up more signals. Google was already installed and no Chinese apps at all. App content was really light. All social app (Facebook, spotify, snapshot, instegram, whatsapp, viber, etc) work including her banking app. She bought it on Amazon Spain. It arrived in 5 days with no customs or extras.

It cost €127 deliverd.

The "kimovil" site does not give all specs as it has a hall sensor and can access 5GHz WiFi. The battery has fast charging.

http://www.kimovil.com/en/where-to-buy-leagoo-elite-5

A friend of mine ordered this on my recommendation (127 E, amazon.de, arrived with UPS in about a week). I got to play with it today to set it up for her. Lovely phone for the price, nice and nippy, hardly any bloatware. The back may feel a bit flimsy, and I'm not sure how well it would withstand frequent opening and closing, but then, she won't be doing that :P.
The screen is crisp and good quality, the build quality (apart from the back) feels decent and nothing wobbles :P. Camera seems excellent as well. All in all, a very decent phone for the price. It also supports one standard size and one micro sized SIM, so no SIM size change was needed - plus a slot for a SD card.
Had an OTA update waiting as well.
She certainly was a very happy camper

PadraigL

morgana wrote: »

A friend of mine ordered this on my recommendation (127 E, amazon.de, arrived with UPS in about a week). I got to play with it today to set it up for her. Lovely phone for the price, nice and nippy, hardly any bloatware. The back may feel a bit flimsy, and I'm not sure how well it would withstand frequent opening and closing, but then, she won't be doing that :P.
The screen is crisp and good quality, the build quality (apart from the back) feels decent and nothing wobbles :P. Camera seems excellent as well. All in all, a very decent phone for the price. It also supports one standard size and one micro sized SIM, so no SIM size change was needed - plus a slot for a SD card.
Had an OTA update waiting as well.
She certainly was a very happy camper

FYI; The current update will get rid of notifications for whatsapp and snapchat. Leagoo recommend to disable battery master, which worked.
So impressed with the phone ordered one directly from China (aliexpress) for €84. Taking a chance on customs. Should arrive in 2/3 weeks. Let you know when it arrives.

90sBla

Umi Zero in excellent condition for sale. €45 inc postage. Inc box , charger, leather flip case etc.
It needs someone who can install a custom recovery and flash a new rom to bypass this security code that appeared when my sister gave this phone to me. I put in a new sim and it wants a code. Was quoted 35 by phone repair shop in town to flash recovery + ROM etc. Not worth it. I already have a great phone , this was to be a back up.

Edit: normally im good at these things but currently only have a chromebook so I cant really fiddle about with it myself
m.imgur.com/a/UCPq1

Iseedeadpixels

So if any of you remember I face planted my Xiaomi the 2nd day I had it and had to buy a Oukitel K6000 due to lack of funds, anyway I had a bit to spare from saving for a house so bought a Asus X005, http://www.etotalk.com/asus-x005-pegasus-5000mah-gold_p13372.html 222 with delivery though ill get stung for customs no doubt. Really looking forward to this arriving.

Hayezer

Got my Xiaomi MI4C during the week, nice little phone very happy with it. I flashed the developer ROM from here http://en.miui.com/download-293.html and installed Play Store etc. Twitter won't work for me though for some reason. Anybody have experience with other ROMs such as the one on the Xiaomi EU forums?

jaqian

Bought a Cubot X15 to replace my Vodafone Smart Ultra 6; only had it two days but I'm very impressed with it so far.

myshirt

Hayezer wrote: »

Got my Xiaomi MI4C during the week, nice little phone very happy with it. I flashed the developer ROM from here http://en.miui.com/download-293.html and installed Play Store etc. Twitter won't work for me though for some reason. Anybody have experience with other ROMs such as the one on the Xiaomi EU forums?

Did you have a supplier installed custom ROM for multi language?

A lot reporting that when you try update away from this to official rom via updater on this that you'll brick it.

Any truth there? What did yours come with and how did you go about flashing it?

dunleas

PadraigL wrote: »

FYI; The current update will get rid of notifications for whatsapp and snapchat. Leagoo recommend to disable battery master, which worked.
So impressed with the phone ordered one directly from China (aliexpress) for €84. Taking a chance on customs. Should arrive in 2/3 weeks. Let you know when it arrives.

Anyone having issues with Google Play music crashing on a Leagoo ? Just cycles the phone mine is an Elite 5

eamonnq

Iseedeadpixels wrote: »

So if any of you remember I face planted my Xiaomi the 2nd day I had it and had to buy a Oukitel K6000 due to lack of funds, anyway I had a bit to spare from saving for a house so bought a Asus X005, http://www.etotalk.com/asus-x005-pegasus-5000mah-gold_p13372.html 222 with delivery though ill get stung for customs no doubt. Really looking forward to this arriving.

Jaysus, you must be loaded!! You saved enough to buy a house and had some left over to buy that!!!

Am still waiting on the Elephone M3 to be available, not sure I should buy it but I have talked myself into wanting it!!

Are you sure that phone is WCDMA and not just TD-SCDMA ??

Glen_Quagmire

What would be considered the cream of the crop of these Chinese phones?

eamonnq

Glen_Quagmire wrote: »

What would be considered the cream of the crop of these Chinese phones?

It all depends on how much you want to spend, I don't like going over the 200euro mark (or not by much if I do).:D

Allyall

eamonnq wrote: »

It all depends on how much you want to spend, I don't like going over the 200euro mark (or not by much if I do).:D

Yeah, would agree, I can't see the point. Maybe use the phone for a year and if possible, move it on for a few quid.

They can go up as expensive as an iPhone/Samsung/Sony etc.

OnePlus 2 for ~€350 is good, but I wouldn't spend that.
Xiaomi Mi5 for ~€450 same
Etc.

Glen_Quagmire

So what would yous recommend for around the 200 mark?

I've a Sony Z3 so it would have to be better phone than that.

I've 6 months left on me meteor contact but rather go payg when it's up

Digital Solitude

Xiaomi Mi5 is definitely one of the best, or one of the ASUS Zenphones, but they're ugly as hell :pac:

Check kimovil.com and hit all the sliders up fairly high and see what comes out.

The Meizu MX5 Pro is fairly high end too.

Still kicking myself over that stupid kick starter phone and not buying a Meizu MX4.

Did anyone else here back the Ubik Uno?

*edit* You're going to have to search for a phone better than the Z3, are you joking? Never mind for €200

Allyall

Hongkong Goldway are having a sale at the minute
Some great prices there, even after Duty if you get hit.

http://goldway.aliexpress.com/store/311331

(I think it's mostly Xiaomi)

Pyrrhic

I have a Jiayu F2 a good while now, no complaints excellent phone.
Recently I updated SuperUser, which is the rooting software I assume?

Since the update I have been getting random Chinese ad notifications from a weird app which is definitely bloatware.
I'm fine with Windows OS's and general computing but not so much on android.
I'm worried now for Spyware or something worse.

Here are images of the process/app: http://imgur.com/a/OJrMC
It won't let me force stop or uninstall.

What should I do lads?

Hayezer

myshirt wrote: »

Did you have a supplier installed custom ROM for multi language?

A lot reporting that when you try update away from this to official rom via updater on this that you'll brick it.

Any truth there? What did yours come with and how did you go about flashing it?

Yeah it came with a supplier installed custom ROM and I used updater with no issues!

Glen_Quagmire

Digital Solitude wrote:

*edit* You're going to have to search for a phone better than the Z3, are you joking? Never mind for â‚¬200

Don't quite get what you're saying here?

Digital Solitude

Glen_Quagmire wrote: »

Don't quite get what you're saying here?

Z3 is a very high end phone, there are only a handful that are outright better than it. None of them cost close to €200 from what I'm aware of.

I don't keep up with android as much nowadays so I could be wrong, but I'd be very surprised if you can match the Z3 for under €300.

I was a little brash, apologies.

Glen_Quagmire

I just thought because the Z3 is about 2 years old at this stage, technology would have moved on a bit.

Just did a comparison between the Z3, meizu pro 5 and xiaomi mi5 and there is very little between them

RossieMan

Where can you get Mi5 for under 200? Or 300?

They are all 400 euro phones to be fair.

Glen_Quagmire

I wasn't saying you could get them for 200 quid, I was confirming the point made by Digital Solitude that the Z3 is up there with the best Chinese phones

Iseedeadpixels

eamonnq wrote: »

Jaysus, you must be loaded!! You saved enough to buy a house and had some left over to buy that!!!

Am still waiting on the Elephone M3 to be available, not sure I should buy it but I have talked myself into wanting it!!

Are you sure that phone is WCDMA and not just TD-SCDMA ??

Yeh I checked the bands to be sure.