@jopsany
I have 3G on my Android phone from China mobile.

Hi,

The misses and me are looking at updating our Android phones and think it will be best to purchase outright rather than on a contract is we will be here for 12 months.

Found a big electronics shop at corner of Qingnian rd and Renmin middle road that had very good choice. My experience has been that large flash stores are more expensive than other resellers of phones.

Huawei g630 for a 1000 which looks like a pretty decent, but not too expensive phone for the misses. Not sure if its worth buying online. If so, where is a reliable shop to order from?

Not sure about how to convert from chinese language to English. I know the android OS can swap languages.

Would love to get a oneplus one phone but now they are by invite most of the time.

Noticed when my htc one s phone got a sim card in, it only shows 2G not 3G... doh

小米,红米. The Xiaomi, Hongmi. They run a modified, but optimized Android and are very cheap for what you get. Checked last week, you can get them for under 1000. If you want to spend more, the Mi3 is about 1600 and twice the features and speed. Some people don't like OS (called MIUI), but I think its great. Two cents...Just look around the Xiaoximen area for their stand-alone orange and white stores.

Thanks dtedheshi . We were in the electronics area today so we had a look. Saw the mi3 for 1699. Just read some reviews of it, and it is a impressive piece of kit for the price.

There are so many mobile phone shops in the area we were in, that I wonder how much haggling you could do on the price. I assume they are selling the 16gb version.

cheers.

I bought an MI3 direct to replace my iPhone. It is a great phone, most powerful in the world. Very fast and packed with great features. And cheap!
But beware how you buy it. ONLY by direct from Xiaomi or you are 90% sure to get a knock off. This phone is only sold by them directly. Others are fake.

Good to hear phone is great. Seen it for 1499 at walmart. Am sure they dont sell fakes. Just heard a few issues with getting it all working in english. Xda forums have a couple of roms now. Just waiting com chinese friend to get back with price too. Oh yeah, how is thee physical build quality?

order it online from the official shop. youll save quite a bit of money, and it arrive in a few days.

Thanks, I will have a look for the shop. If you have the link that would be great. Thanks.

mi.com wait til next month if youre buying mi3 it will be discounted further. they are amazing phones and rarely stolen. if you get a mi3 get the nvidia chip one, dont expect a selection on color. these things sell out so fast, it took me about 2 weeks to fully understand the entire phone and settings in chinese. the english roms are lacking.

I've used both Xiaomi 2 and Xiaomi 3. Fantastic deal if you can get it directly from their website, but ordering it online at another store is usually only 100 to 200 kuai more.

Unfortunately it only has English and Chinese. The English isn't too bad, although a bit technical at times.

The only thing I don't like is that from the original to the 3rd they seem to come with more and more junk software preinstalled. Fortunately most of it can be deleted.

By default it doesn't come with the Google Play store either. I've installed it on Xiaomi 2, but never tried to install it on the Xiaomi 3.

Xiaomi also provides a place to download other roms. Though I don't think the stock android ROM has been updated lately, and not sure what languages it comes with... But here is the site if you want to try yourself: rom.xiaomi.cn/