Chinese smartphone as good as a Galaxy S2?

March 14, 2013 10:00 AM

Please help me choose a Chinese smartphone!

I'd love a Samsung Galaxy S2, but can't afford one. So I'm looking at buying the closest Chinese smartphone I can afford from this site. Problem is I'm far from fluent in spec reading, and I don't see a reliable review site covering these phones.

Spec-fluent mefites, I'd love it if you could try and spot a nice match to the Galaxy S2! (close in phone quality, android capabilities, camara, video and radio. don't care about the looks)

It would also be great to be pointed to a site with reliable reviews (in English) covering these models!

Thanks!!!

posted by mirileh to technology (6 answers total)

Hello mirlieh, the only Chinese smartphone manufacturer that I've heard of in Europe is Huawei. Many online reviewers have covered their recent models and it looks like their price/performance ratio is great.
I can't really recommend you a specific model since I've never used one but they have phones in all price ranges.
posted by lite at 11:05 AM on March 14

Do you have a specific budget? There's still a broad range of prices there. A Meizu MX is a higher end piece of kit but costs as much as a Galaxy SII.

Also, what wireless carrier or technology will you use? Some of these devices are GSM, some are CDMA.

I would stick to the larger manufacturers like Huawei, Lenovo, and ZTE. Beyond that, you want a recent version of Android (4.1, maybe 4.0), a reasonably fast dual-core processor, and a bunch of RAM (512MB to 1GB).
posted by akgerber at 11:35 AM on March 14

It's not listed on the site you linked, but I used a Xiaomi M1 for the past year (before upgrading to a Nexus 4), and found it to be high quality and reliable. The M2 is out now, for about US$300 in China. I've also heard mostly good things about Meizu.
posted by bradf at 4:44 PM on March 14

is this for use IN china, or elsewhere?
also...you don't want those phones...also, they might not even exist/are only pictures/might just be a clock radio that looks like a phone. at the very least, they will be vastly inferior and getting them to actually work will be more trouble than it's worth
if you're in the u.s., check out ting.com ...you pay more for the phone, but their rates can be super cheap and vary depending on how much you use...my service is ~$25/month (i dont use a lot of data/wifi at home/work)...they have the Galaxy s3...I have the galaxy note 2 from them (love it)...after 4 months it paid for itself (vs. the big carrier price+bills)
posted by sexyrobot at 12:34 AM on March 15

Not used a Galaxy, but FWIW I have a Huawei Ascend G300, after smashing my HTC Desire HD. It cost £99 sim-free, and the only real differences are the screen quality (it's not HD, obviously, but the screen size is brilliant for the price), the camera quality, and it runs much slower. Other than that it's fine, it doesn't even crash as much as the HTC did. I would really, really recommend it for someone looking for a dirt-cheap smartphone.
posted by sarahdal at 4:48 AM on March 15

You should be able to get a Galaxy S2 for a relatively low price, as they are now two models old. Also, you could look into the NEXUS 4 on the Google Play store. Finally, Engadget had this article about some upcoming inexpensive phones: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/15/blu-life-series-smartphones/
Failing those, I have heard good things about Huawei.
For good specs and reviews, I often use gsmarena. Just search for the phone that interests you.
posted by mbarryf at 6:24 AM on March 15