Buy Phones From China BEST

But Chinese smartphones are growing in popularity in the UK. Brands like Huawei and OnePlus have almost become household names, but there are plenty of others to choose from: Xiaomi, Realme, ZTE, Vivo, Oppo, Meizu and more.

buy phones from china

In 2018, the Trump administration filed an executive order banning US companies from working with Huawei. As that includes Google, Huawei phones are now reduced to using the open-source version of Android which not only means weaker security, but no first-party Google apps including Maps, Gmail or YouTube.

While plenty of the more affordable handsets are starting to dress up in slick, flagship-style designs, none of the mid-range Chinese phones on offer quite match the level of class offered by the Honor 70. Tiny side bezels give plenty of prominence to the vibrant OLED display, while the glass back panel feels silky smooth to the touch and glints pleasingly when it catches the light.

Its cousin above, the Poco X4 Pro 5G, still holds on to the title of the best option under 300, but if you can stretch your budget a little further, the newer Poco F4 offers the most bang for your buck of any Chinese phone right now. Building on the success of the Poco F3, the F4 brings Dolby Vision to the table, for better quality streaming, as well as a bumped-up 64MP main camera and speedy 67W fast charging that is capable of filling the battery from empty in around 38 minutes.

So, you're looking to buy a phone from China. Whether you read about them on here, you saw some reviews online,or got recommended one by a friend, you decided you could get better bang for your buck importing a phone ratherthan buying one of the major brands they offer locally. Among being unique, relatively cheap and veryvaried, there's a bunch of reasons you'd want to buy a chinaphone, which we won't be covering in this guide.

What we will be talking about is the process of buying a phone from the far east and getting it to your doorstep,with minimal risk and cost. There's a few things here that fall under common sense, some things you might not havethought of, and other things we learned the hard way, so you don't have to. There's obviously things you can't preparefor, so we'll make sure we cover most of the things for which you can.

You've decided you want a chinaphone, but which one? I won't be detailing different processors/camera sensors/technologieshere because these things move too fast to be put into a general buying guide, if you want spec details or comparisons,the subreddit's often full of people discussing those, so go on and join them! Here are some important notes you mightwant to consider when looking for a phone that's right for you:

Never buy a phone without a brand name: A lot of factories in China churn out unbranded phones when they're notbeing employed by some brand to make phones with set designs and materials. These phones come out with nothing more thanan arbitrary model number assigned to them. They're often poorly made clones of existing phones, with design flaws at everystage of the process.The problem is that, since there's no brand to tarnish, they lie about specs without shame, and the software is often riddledwith malware with no alternative OSs to turn to. Luckily most reputable stores don't offer these devices, but a lot of sellerson AliExpress or Ebay still do, so beware.

Check your radio frequencies: With all these new technologies being tacked on to our phones we'd almost forget the most basic feature:connectivity. Not much use in a phone if you can't call anyone, is there? Always make sure to check whether a phone would workin your country and with your provider. You could do this yourself to be extra sure, but if you want to save a lot of timeyou should go to WillMyPhoneWork.net, a great site providing instant access to the compatibilityof hundreds of phones with hundreds of carriers around the world. Most regular Chinese brands are on there, if you manage to finda phone you're interested in that isn't featured on the site, you can check yourself by looking at the specs and looking up thefrequencies provided in your country here.

Beware of video reviewers: Of course you've been entering phone model names into the Youtube search bar to look at somehands on reviews of the devices you're interested in. It's great that these exist, and they're a great source to see the thingsin action and hear an experienced user detail his opinions. There's two important things to keep in mind though, the first being that,in the eternal race for views, likes and shares, reviewers tend to try and get their review in as fast as possible, often getting inone, maybe two weeks of use before recording the review. You can get a good idea of performance, looks and general feature functionalitythis way, but since you'll probably be using the thing for more than a few days, they often aren't a good indication of build quality,software updates or longevity. There's a few brave reviewers out there who do follow-up reviews after several months of use(shouts out to TechTablets, for instance), but these are few and far between because they take a lot of timeand often have diminishing returns. The second thing is that most popular video reviewers get approached by stores or brands to do exclusivereviews for them, and as we all know nothing in life is free. I'm definitely not saying every reviewer out there is being paid off to saypositive things about their subjects, not at all, but keep in mind that it's a possibility. My advice is to look at as many reviews as you can,but also check forums like XDA-Developers and, well, our very own subreddit, to get some insights fromactual, non-affiliated users, who might have been using a phone you're interested in for a long time and might know of those niggles thatonly come up after extended use.

After a lot of consideration, comparing and weighing your budget, you've found the phone that's right for you. Now you're going to give your moneyto a company that's thousands of miles away, speaks another language, and is governed by different laws. It's this fact that acts as the biggest deterrentfor most people who want to get an affordable phone from China. We won't lie to you, it's never completely without risk, but then again, what is?With these few tips you can absolutely minimize your chance of having a bad experience.

If available, always pay with PayPal: While I cannot speak only good of Paypal, a company whose morals are not always in the right place, theirconsumer protection measures are undoubtedly on point. Their main selling point for buyers is that they offer dispute assistance if there's a problemwith your offer. Through a guided process they gather information from both you and the seller, and offer a resolution based on the outcome of this process.As long as you can reasonably prove (see later) your order arrived in a different state as promised (DOA, different color, missing accessories etc.),you will probably be awarded a partial or full refund, up to 6 months after purchase.

Buy from trusted stores: While there's plenty of stores that are trustworthy and reputable, for a lot of people it's the bad apples that spoil thebunch, and to avoid problems you should try and buy at stores that you know people have had good experiences with. If you look on the main page in the wikithere's a bunch of first-hand store reports from a few of our members. If there's nothing there, you can always ask for opinions in a new thread with the[REPUTATION] tag, or look for some store reviews on other forums. Keep in mind though that people who are wronged are often more likely to speak theiropinions online than people who have no problems, so review ratios might often be skewed. Every store screws up every once in a while, the important thingis that they treat you fairly after such a thing happens. Finally, because I know the question will come up, here's some stores I can personally vouch forout of personal experience: Pandawill, DealExtreme, Everbuying,Mixeshop (mainly for TV boxes) and IBuyGou. (Hot Tip: if you'd like to buy from a store but can't besure about them, try buying a few sub-$2 junk items in a single order and waiting for that first. Often seeing how they handle this will give you a goodindication of how trustworthy they are).

Ask if the phone you're buying is in stock: There's nothing more irritating that finding out an order you've made isn't being shipped to you becausethe seller doesn't have the phone in stock yet. Always shoot them an e-mail or chat message asking if the phone you're buying is in stock. If they say yes,you're good to go. If they say no, without more information, don't bother and look elsewhere. If they tell you "it will be available from [Date]", don'tjust buy after that date has passed, instead, send them another mail then asking the same thing.

Never pre-order: Now, you may want to forego this warning if you really trust the brand you're buying from, but as a general rule it's wise neverto pre-order a phone. This isn't just true of Chinese phones, but pretty much any expensive piece of hardware you buy anywhere. Buying a phone beforeanyone has seen it in action (save at a convention or something) and no-one but the brand itself has hands-on videos out isn't a smart thing to do. Oftenthe most glaring issues come out after a month or two of the phone being out in the wild. This isn't limited to cheaper chinese brands either, even biggerbrands have things like this happening. The Oppo Find 7 for instance, had a mere 2GB app partition, something that wasn't mentioned on spec sheets or inearly reviews, so it only became well-known after a lot of people already bought their device. If you absolutely can't wait to be an early adopter, Iprobably can't stop you, but if you're looking for a dependable device, buy something that's been out for at least more than a month. Brands that offerexclusive pre-order discounts are doubly suspicious, because this indicates they don't expect the phone to sell that well after it's been out in the wild fora while, so they want to reel in the buyers that are on the edge early on. 041b061a72