Reputable online buying in China?

[mandarinstudent]

I'm looking to buy a Palm Treo PDA/phone (650 or 700 model) but I can't seem to find it here in Changchun. Is there anywhere you can buy it online in China without getting ripped off? By this I mean Chinese websites. I hear that you can't use American Treos in China. Is that true?

[Jonny Wang]

You can use a u.s. treo in China if it is a GSM phone (vs. CDMA) and if it's unlocked (vs. tied to a particular U.S. carrier.

I believe Cingular is the main GSM phone service provider in the U.S., so their Treo's are okay, but locked. You can search on the internet for methods of unlocking a Treo so that you can use it with any service provider. There are people who charge for the service (basically providing you some code to enter into the phone to unlock it). But I think the information is available for free on the internet as well.

There are also unlocked GSM phones sold in the U.S. You can buy them directly from Palm or on Ebay. The new ones are more expensive than in China though, and won't have the CJKOS pre-installed like the Hong Kong phones have.

Also, beware of Ebay! I got ripped off trying to buy a Treo 600 on Ebay. Payed by PayPal and the guy never sent the Treo. Took 6 months to finally get a partial refund through Ebay's buyer protection service and still ended up losing probably $150!

There have to be tons of places that have it in Beijing though. Maybe other Beijingers can suggest places for you.

[gato]

If you can read Chinese, you can try taobao.com, a Chinese version of eBay. Each seller has a customer rating, just like on eBay, which might give you some idea of how trustworthy he or she is.

http://search1.taobao.com/browse/0/t-g,orzgk3zagy2ta----------------40-list-commend-0-all-0.htm

[roddy]

In your case, I would probably go to whoever does sell high-end mobiles / smartphones / PDAs locally and see if they could order one for you. Failing that, taobao is probably a reasonable option - they have Treo 650's as close as Shenyang. . .