Been browsing around and there are now lots of Android smartphones by a variety of manufacturers which can be bought from China on the Internet.

Lots now have very decent specs with new versions of Android, decent spec cameras, big displays, 2GB of RAM and Octocore CPUs. I see loads with 3G available but not found any yet with LTE.

It would be interesting if anyone finds any to post some details in this thread so they can be compared with mainstream options like HTC, Sony, Hauwei and Samsung alternatives.

Are you looking at dual SIM? Or single SIM?

Because there are no LTE dual SIM devices until the Mediatek and Qualcomm dual SIM LTE platforms launch later this year.

For single SIM devices there are a few in China with LTE.
It is worth bearing in mind that LTE is new in China and does not use the same bands as the UK. So it will be harder to find LTE devices in China that work over here. If you want I can give you a list of current devices? But if you ask me by the end of this year when Mediatek/Qualcomm have launched I can give you a much longer list.

Here is a list of some of the Chinese phones with LTE:
Oppo Find 7
ZTE Nubia Z5S LTE
ZTE Nubia Z5S Mini LTE
Gionee Elife E7 LTE
Coolpad S6
ZTE Grand Memo 2 LTE
Huawei Ascend series (Mate 2, G6 etc...)
Dakele L1
Vivo Xplay 3S
Elephone P10
UMI X3
Lenovo Vibe Z

Rumoured: Xiaomi Mi3S

Has anybody bought a recent smartphone from China that supports 4G?

I have the the one plus that works on 4g with ee and 3 very good phone.

I'm hoping to get a Cubot 'Zorro' within the next few weeks, to replace my GT99 which has worked flawlessly for the best part of two years.

BTW - you can also buy the Zorro from a UK vendor on Ebay for around £112, which would probably work out less than buying from China, if it happened to get stopped, and you were charged the 20% VAT and Royal Mail / DHL customs admin fees. Faster delivery too!.

In addition to the Cubot, I think the MPIE G7 and Elephone P3000S will support UK 4G frequencies.

http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Eleph...te-342434.html

I have pre ordered the elephone p7000, should be out by next month. They charged me when I put my order in via paypal, but when you sign up I got a 5% off code in the welcome email.

I'd love ThL to bring out a 4G phone with 5" screen. I bought a ThL W200 over a year ago and it's a spare phone now but a still working perfectly. I really like the ThL brand.

I have just bought the jiayu S3 Review here got to say its a cracking phone not notice any difference in my day to day than with the real galaxy note 4 i had before it getting stolen well except the price difference lol, The 4g on it works fantastic and is even 800mhz ready too, mine didnt come with google play etc but within 5 mins i had it installed running and replaced the default launcher, lollipop is meant to be coming to it soon too which will be nice with the 64 bit processor, cant recommend the phone enough though and for the price £132 from jiayu-store.com did get £15 import tax and i did pay about £8 for DHL shipping but even then its a good price for the spec of it, Not many phones in the UK with 3GB ram for that price lol

Ash

Both EE and Three have 800MHz spectrum which they are in the process of rolling out, the one+ has no 800MHz support, but will work with the 1800MHz portion of those networks.

A one+ owner will probably start seeing small gaps in the network whilst those with more capable phones will not, a bit like original iPhone 5 users.

I've had the iNew L1 for a couple of weeks now.

It's dual sim, and one of the slots supports 4G.

Really nice phone, quite fast and smooth. A bargain for just over £100.

I loved my THL W200 until I dropped it on a night out!

I currently own the THL T6 Pro. Bought for £79. Its would be a decent phone if it didnt reboot 2 or 3 times a day. I'm going to keep it until the summer and replace it with a 4G phone. I have to say the Jiyau S3 looks a great phone for the price

One thing that makes me want to steer clear of most Chinese smartphones are the allegations of spyware/malware embedded in the operating system.

Not good. The more reputable firms like Huawei might be worth a look at though.

Do any of them use well-supported CPUs these days? That seemed to be the other problem with the cheap junk.

All smartphones are spying on us. Not just chinese

There's a difference between "I know that Google looks through my email for advertising purposes" and "data that I want to keep private, is going to Chinese intelligence or just some shoddy adware company"

Huawei are amongst the worst companies for spying. Not really a surprise when they were started by a Chinese official.

Along with some branded Smart TV's, and Xbox consoles

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...h-devices.html

http://betanews.com/2015/02/19/samsu...-to-stop-that/

We live in a society where people are paranoid about technology spying on them, yet at the same time a large percentage of those same individuals will happily chronicle every decision and every move they make on a daily basis on social networking, I suspect the Chinese could learn far more about the West from reading millions of open social network profiles, than through the effort of spying on them individually via phones!.

If you are concerned, then buy a phone which is popular on the Chinese market, as the Chinese consumer won't buy their own dodgy phones or models which break after a few months .

As far as i'm aware there was only one brand actually proven to have Spyware embedded on it, and that was an early model made by Star, there is also no evidence that it was put there by the Manufacturer, it could just have easily have been installed after it left the Factory by a dodgy Vendor or middleman hoping to earn an extra few quid from whatever commissions, premium rate texts or click throughs the spyware produced - which is why its a good idea to buy only from reputable sources with high positive feedback ratings.

I've owned my Cubot GT99 for a couple of years, it runs 24/7 both as a phone and full time wifi hotspot and its never done anything dodgy, sent any premium calls / texts and i've never even seen a Chinese language character appear on its display or menus etc.

But I will admit that at the time of the Star spyware media frenzy I also scoured the Android sites, looking for the names of known rogue android files and comparing the file names on my phone against the list given on the sites, I found none, hence why i'm remaining faithful to the brand for my next phone.

Spying on us how?

Double poat

Nice might get one myself. Will it work with EE 4G?[/quote]

This was the report regarding the Star N9500, as far as i'm aware this is the only instance to get mass media attention, i've never come across reports of this type of thing any on other 'popular' Chinese phones.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/new...p7sDBaNc2pauS2

The point about it being impossible to remove were only partly correct, out of the box, yes, but once rooted it is easy to locate the spyware files and either change their permissions to 0000 (to stop them running or being accessed) or just simply delete them altogether.

The spyware in this instance was a uupay trojan, which can be removed manually via rooting, and is detected by using ESET mobile security.

Most Chinese Manufacturers are trying to break their products into the European Market and the West in general, I can't see them sabotaging any chance of that by putting spyware and malware into their phones. The big difference being that 'Star' was an unknown manufacturer and nobody seemed to know where these phones were originating from, however THL, Cubot etc, have their own Factories, Websites, Support forums etc, and are genuine Chinese companies.

[/quote]

yes will work perfectly fine on EE i use mine with three payg and o2 contract . three for data and o2 for calls/text and 4g works perfectly fine using same band as EE, it supports 800 1800 & 2600 so will work on ee and vodas other spectrum too

Ash

yes will work perfectly fine on EE

Ash[/quote]

Cheers fella.

Can anyone recommend a decent Chinese phone for under £100. With or without 4G. Maximum 4.5" For my son