Took the plunge!

[That Afro Guy]

So, about a week and a half ago, I took the plunge and decided to buy a cheap china made mobile device (Star S2000), to tinker around with. (Not to replace my GS4 mind you ) And I must say this: I am more than pleasantly surprised by the functionality of the device! It runs on a quad core MTK6589 processor, overclocked to around 1.5 Ghz, has 1 Gb of RAM, and runs on android 4.2.1. Dual SIM phone, so internationally, a good buy. It has a 5 inch FWVGA screen, with very admirable screen sharpness and quality (yes, I know, not the best, but pretty dang good. Whites and blacks are almost on par with my GS4) I didn't trust the Antutu benchmark scores for the device, (the application came pre installed, and was installed in the SYSTEM directory? Obviously someone tinkered around with the results!) It claimed to get 13,500, so I rooted, uninstalled it, and re-installed the one from the play store, and get consistent 11,750 scores. The phone's a quad band, that runs on the 850/900/1800/1900 GSM frequencies, and supports the 850/1900 WCDMA (3G) frequencies. It functions on ATT's 3G network quite well, I must say! I get about a full day on moderate usage (maaaaybe around 12 hours or so). Overall, for a 160 dollar phone, this thing kicks behind!

 

[funkylogik]

The chinese devices are well worth watching man. Some bargains out there :beer:
I suppose the only problem is lack of dev' support?

 

[nickdalzell]

...and in most cases, quality control. The biggest problem with Chinese devices is when the batteries suddenly lose the ability to charge, or the device keeps crashing, boot looping, and the LCD separates from the digitizer. I got a Trio Tab which is actually well made and works fine, used mainly as a remote control for my Xbox 360 and to check weather first thing in the morning, but I went through literally five junk tablets before I got the one good one. In my view, cheap, budget Chinese tablets are only useful as cheap guinea pigs with which to test that root app or ROM you've been cooking up. At least they're throwaway and cheap if they end up bricks

 

[That Afro Guy]

Agreed. I've ordered my fair share of junk Chinese hardware, and I usually don't order a phone, if the battery is less than 2000mAh.

 

[funkylogik]

Yeah the throwaway thing, you could end up with a faulty device and no way of claiming the warranty. Manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei (i cant spell or say it properly lol) seem to be coming on and you could trust them to honour their warranty :thumbup:

P.s, how do you pronounce the Huawei one lol? Me n my 10yr old (geek) nephew were debating that the other night lol

 

[nickdalzell]

I have a policy. Don't buy brands you cannot pronounce or have never heard of. I'll stick to Sony, Samsung, Motorola, etc. If Curtis Mathes Or Fisher make Android phones, I'll buy them as well. I think to answer your question, it is pronounced "who way" but that's just how I read it.

 

[mikedt]

Yeah the throwaway thing, you could end up with a faulty device and no way of claiming the warranty. Manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei (i cant spell or say it properly lol) seem to be coming on and you could trust them to honour their warranty :thumbup:

P.s, how do you pronounce the Huawei one lol? Me n my 10yr old (geek) nephew were debating that the other night lol

I know how to pronounce "Huawei" 华为. :smokingsomb:

FYI:
inogolo - Pronunciation of Huawei : How to pronounce Huawei

 

[funkylogik]

Lmao thanks peeps. I was right n my nephew was wrong. In your face 10yr old!

 

[mikedt]

Pop quiz: who knows how to correctly pronounce "Zhongxing", which is the "Z" of ZTE. Full name is Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment.

 

[palmtree5]

Pop quiz: who knows how to correctly pronounce "Zhongxing", which is the "Z" of ZTE. Full name is Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment.

Tongshing (at least that's what it sounded like using Google Translate)

 

[funkylogik]

Lmao ive no idea i didnt even know what ZTE stood for :beer:

 

[That Afro Guy]

Yeah the throwaway thing, you could end up with a faulty device and no way of claiming the warranty. Manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei (i cant spell or say it properly lol) seem to be coming on and you could trust them to honour their warranty :thumbup:

P.s, how do you pronounce the Huawei one lol? Me n my 10yr old (geek) nephew were debating that the other night lol

True story! Lol Huawei and ZTE are the premium Chinese brands (along with Oppo).

 

[nickdalzell]

Not for me, my ZTE Merit was perhaps the most buggy of my three total android smart phones. Turn on 3g and it random rebooted over and over. Taught me an important lesson on only buying brands you know. I hadn't heard of ZTE, and that was mistake number 1

 

[chanchan05]

True story! Lol Huawei and ZTE are the premium Chinese brands (along with Oppo).

What about Lenovo? I thought they were Chinese? AFAIK Asus and HTC are Taiwanese though.

 

[nickdalzell]

Lenovo is just a company trying to be IBM. They make lower quality variants of the IBM think pad. Their tablets lagged in store and didn't impress me one bit.

 

[funkylogik]

Not for me, my ZTE Merit was perhaps the most buggy of my three total android smart phones. Turn on 3g and it random rebooted over and over. Taught me an important lesson on only buying brands you know. I hadn't heard of ZTE, and that was mistake number 1

My 1st android was a mega cheap ZTE so maybe they have a place in my heart lol :beer:

 

[saptech]

IBM sold their PC unit to Lenovo and continue to use their hardware for their purposes. I do believe the quality of the hardware has since went down.

 

[mikedt]

True story! Lol Huawei and ZTE are the premium Chinese brands (along with Oppo).

These are respectable premium brands, HiSense and CoolPad are a couple more. They're properly exported to the US and EU, have the necessary approvals and localisations, etc, and within country representation and full service centres. Just like Samsung, etc.

Lenovo makes good cellphones as well, but doesn't export them outside of Asia AFAIK.

I wanted a new phone recently. I bought a Samsung rather than a Chinese one this time.

Many carriers own brand phones are Chinese. Like the Vodafone Smart III, which is made by TCL. Or the T-Mobile Vivacity, which I believe is a ZTE.


These are a far cry from the "Help I bought this thing on Ebay, came from China....yadda, yadda, yadda" type things.

 

[mikedt]

So, about a week and a half ago, I took the plunge and decided to buy a cheap china made mobile device (Star S2000), to tinker around with. (Not to replace my GS4 mind you ) And I must say this: I am more than pleasantly surprised by the functionality of the device! It runs on a quad core MTK6589 processor, overclocked to around 1.5 Ghz, has 1 Gb of RAM, and runs on android 4.2.1. Dual SIM phone, so internationally, a good buy. It has a 5 inch FWVGA screen, with very admirable screen sharpness and quality (yes, I know, not the best, but pretty dang good. Whites and blacks are almost on par with my GS4) I didn't trust the Antutu benchmark scores for the device, (the application came pre installed, and was installed in the SYSTEM directory? Obviously someone tinkered around with the results!) It claimed to get 13,500, so I rooted, uninstalled it, and re-installed the one from the play store, and get consistent 11,750 scores. The phone's a quad band, that runs on the 850/900/1800/1900 GSM frequencies, and supports the 850/1900 WCDMA (3G) frequencies. It functions on ATT's 3G network quite well, I must say! I get about a full day on moderate usage (maaaaybe around 12 hours or so). Overall, for a 160 dollar phone, this thing kicks behind!

Will be interesting to see how long it lasts. Friend of mine in the UK just bought something very similar, directly from Shenzhen, called a "Star S4". Thing with these is we don't know who the actual manufacturer is, and there's hundreds of them in Shenzhen.

They basically assemble complete phones from logic boards and modules sourced from other anonymous Shenzhen manufacturers, whomever got the cheapest price. They advertise in the Shenzhen tech trade newspapers, are only contactable via a cellphone number or QQ IM, and it's things like complete Android logic boards for tablets, phones and other devices, touch screen modules, etc. Then you got the "trading companies/middle men" who sell them via Ebay or Ali Express or whatever, and these are often private individuals who are doing it as a second job to supplement their income.

The firms who are actually assembling the phones and tablets, it's literally just a screwdriver job. One firm had ladies hand assembling tablets in a tech mall, when I visited Shenzhen last month.

I can certainly understand about the Antutu benchmark figures been nobbled when you got your phone and what they did to it. When one goes around a Shenzhen trade mall posing as a buyer, they're always very keen to show off the highest Antutu numbers possible.

 

[rich2626]

Yeah I have seen heaps of supposedly high end chinese phones,which are dirt cheap,but I don't trust them enough too purchase them....