Nexus One

[murrayjames]

I'm moving to Chengdu and want to buy a Nexus One before I come. If anyone can answer a few quick cell phone questions I would greatly appreciate it.

I've heard that 3G is possible with China Unicom, but not China Mobile. Is this true? My wife uses China Mobile and I want to be on the same network if possible.

Also, Google is selling phones with different band support:

--Supports 3G/UMTS ****(850/1900/2100 MHz)**** and GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

--Supports 3G/UMTS ****(900/AWS/2100 MHz)**** and GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

Which of these do I want? I will be traveling to major urban centers within China (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong) and want my phone to work in these different places.

Thank you!

[tony1343]

You might also want to check to make sure that the phone can send text messages with Chinese characters. I'm sure it does, but some U.S. phones have problems with that. Actually, the bigger problem is that some of the U.S. providers only have ASCII support so the network can't send them.

[imron]

China Mobile has 3G, but it is based on China's home-grown 3G standard TD-SCDMA, which is incompatible with the WCDMA (UTMS) standard used by phones like the Nexus One.

So, your options are:

China Mobile 2G network (GSM, so the Nexus One will work fine, but not have 3G) or

China Unicom 3G network (WCDMA, so the Nexus One will have 3G).

[AxelManbow]

I saw a tweet yesterday by @Chassit:

#Dopod says Nexus One is making China entry in April. New model number Dopod #T8188. Works on TD-SCDMA. Approved by gov already.

http://twitter.com/Chassit/status/11349603855

[murrayjames]

Nexus One update:

I'm in China and using the phone. China Unicom 3G, student plan, 88 RMB/month. Chengdu. Reception great outside, ok indoors, poor other places (like in my bathroom with the door closed).

Do VPNs work for the Android platform? It's frustrating not be able update my paid applications.

The phone is great, great. I'm running a Chinese OS and it's so smooth. Have Aldiko up as my portable library. Google Pinyin. Maps, Gmail, Calendar, etc. Very slick.

There is one glaring problem that potential buyers should be aware of, though. It's serious enough that you may want to think twice about buying a Nexus One for use in China. I recently moved my contacts from 姓名 to pinyin because of it...

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=0768f8efd1c7b1fb&hl=en&fid=0768f8efd1c7b1fb000485fc94b71cfd

...but overall I'm happy

[gougou]

My wife uses China Mobile and I want to be on the same network if possible.

IIRC, the fees for calling within the same network are no different from calling to another network (at least for most of the plans), so unless you were planning to do that to symbolize that you're willing to follow her wherever she leads, this would not need to be an issue.

[MrTy]

Tony is right, make sure the phone can send Chinese characters when texting or else you will be screwed.