Hi, friends!
I've just arrived to Kunming.

I have a problems with my phone here. I am using LG Nexus, it's google phone. But most google services is not provided here. I use China Mobile and 4g is also not working on my phone. So I desided to change it.

It is so many phones on China market. Can you advise some not expensive phone, which will work with 4g China Mobile and with english language. Thank you in advance!

hi, sirinx,welcome to the place with an internet great wall. it is nothing to do with your phone, it is china's great wall that blocks access to anything google. if you need google then you need vpn. buying a phone in china won't change. :-)

Mi 4C

Go to the China Mobile specialist stores. They have a range of phones that will all work.
If you bought your existing phone outside of mainland China, you will have problems.

Your Google services will not work due to the great Fire Wall of China even with a local phone. Check with local users what does work and find alternatives.

Ugh. Dont buy a carrier branded phone unless they give it to you for free with a package. Mi 4C will work with all Chinese carriers' 4G and it's cheap and works good.

Yep. Get a Xiaomi phone. Blows iPhone out of the water and it's less than half the price. Works worldwide.

And yes, buy a good VPN. You will need it no matter what phone you have.

Am I paranoid not to trust xiaomi phones? Something like hardware spy 'features' that I can't get around? Or have I been reading too much into Snowden articles? My memory is not as good as it should be. I don't remember what it is I'm paranoid about.

@somenick: Are you talking about iphones? ;) I'm using XiaoMi since they came to the chinese market and don't have any problems with chinese spy's until now... but i have nothing to hide. Their quality is great, price more than reasonable and their MIUI is also a big +.

I reckon using a Chinese phone may allow you to skip the Americans spying on you, instead! I'd say Xiaomi as the other Chinese manufacturers are pretty safe. Talking about political matters on WeChat and QQ is a known risky matter instead, especially when in Tibet.
Beware of the UCBrowser app citizenlab.org/[...] which is a known spyware. Once I read something similar about another app under the QQ branding (maybe QQbrowser??).
And if you really wanna go safe, buy Xiaomi 4 and install W10 on it!