Smartphones - Chinese marketplace

[bikes4two]

> Whilst on the lookout for a replacement smartphone, I 'stumbled' across the large number of smartphones made for the Far Eastern market (although given that every 5th person on the planet is in China, to say nothing of Indonesia and India, I shouldn't have been surprised really).
> Anyway, after some research and Youtube-ing, I settled on an Elephone P7000 (specs for this Android phone are here )
> It has a 5.5" display, fast processor, a replaceable battery (eat your heart out iPhone users ) that I get 3 days moderate usage from between charges, a GPS, 13MP camera, takes two SIM cards (for when I'm using foreign SIMs on my trips), etc etc.
> It cost me £129 delivered in 24hrs from an EU warehouse (so no Customs charges) and so far has been a delight in all respects.
> Using Alpine Quest to record a 3hr ride yesterday, the battery charge dropped by 10%, so an all-day GPS recording will be fine.

I'd be interested to hear of forum member's experiences with Chinese phones (good and bad of course) especially as I'm now looking at a second, smaller model for Mrs B4two.

[alanesq]

I have a THL Chinese phone which cost me about £100 (although you can get them a lot cheaper these days) I have been very pleased with (particularly like the ability to have 2 sims in it which I don't think any "regular" phones let you do)
I know of 4 other people who also bought one after seeing mine and no bad reports from any of them

Last time I was run down on my bike the phone went about flying about 20 meters down the road and survived with just a minor chip to the case, so they seem well built

I chose THL as they seem to be a very well known company in China from what I could find out although I have just ordered myself an octa cored 7" phablet from an unknown manufacturer for £115 which is a bit more of a gamble

BTW - All these phones were bought from http://www.chinavasion.com

[bikes4two]

Hi alanesq,
Did you or any of the 4 other buyers have to pay Customs duty? As far as I can tell, being stung for Customs is rare and not likely.

I was luck in that http://WWW.gearbest.com had them in stock in a UK warehouse so no Customs.

[alanesq]

I bought three of them myself and was charged tax once

[Bicycler]

Worth pointing out that it is your legal obligation to ensure that the correct import vat and customs duty is paid if you are importing something into the country.

[Rich_Clements]

I had one it broke after a couple of months (my fault) they are good value, I now have a moto Gv2 which has dual sim as well although I dont have a need for that.

[Edwards]

These phones look interesting but I have a few questions.

1/ What is the battery life like?

2/ Can they be used as mobile Hot Spot for Tethering?

[TrekMad]

Battery life is pretty much same as a similar Samsung. AND you get a spare battery. You can tether with all of them, though the one weak spot I've noticed is the main speaker.

So if you like your ringtones very loud or ime the phone to play a lot of music, sooner or later the speaker will fail. Apart from that easily as good as a Samsung and mostly quad processor versions can be had for under £60.

I've got a new Honor 4x which is made by Huawei and for £115 imported from India it's the best phone I've ever owned. Full stop!

[al_yrpal]

These phones look interesting but I have a few questions.

1/ What is the battery life like?

2/ Can they be used as mobile Hot Spot for Tethering?

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobil ... e-3279408/

I think tethering is a standard Android feature. I have used it lots, but abroad my provider Three doesnt allow it.

Al

[hamster]

Does it use the proper Google Play app store or some Chinese 'forked Android' one? Beware the security issues on the latter as the Apps are generally not checked for malware.

[TrekMad]

There was only one brand of Chinese phone which used proprietary Play store ( last sold in 2013) and that was the STAR brand. They got found out pretty quickly, though afaik the malware was very benign.

No Chinese phone I've seen since has come with anything other than the bog standard vanilla Google Play store.