Why are you buying (insert next Chinese phone here)?

We’ve seen some stunning phonelaunch over the past few months and many of you have decided what you plan to buy, so which Chinesephone are you buying next and why?

September was a great month for Chinese Android phone launches, we had the Xiaomi Mi3 launch, Meizu MX3 and the Oppo N1. Those are the big 3, but there are other phones which are to be launched to including a new Nubia device, the Vivo Xplay 2, and a whole host of great phone from TCL, JiaYu, UMi, iOcean, Zopo and more!

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So with the big guns launched, a few more on their way and as we are sitting on the verge of an all out 8-core Chinesephone war, which phone do you plan on buying for yourself next?

Also we would love to know what swayed you to your chosen device. Was it price, performance, design, battery life, developer support? Let us know your plans and why in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

About the author
Andi

Andi
September 30, 2013
I’ll go first. Xiaomi Mi3 is my choice (the China Unicom Snapdragon 800 model) the reason being, price, performance and size. I’m also very impressed with how well my Mi2 has lasted and continues to perform.
I might also be tempted by an Oppo N1, just out of curiosity, but I’ll be waiting to see what Vivo have in store with the Xplay 2 and am very interested in the Oppo Find 7,
- Amit
  October 1, 2013
  Mi3 has a non-removable battery. It would be difficult to replace the battery without Xiaomi’s support, specially for people living outside of China
  - Ibrahim
    October 1, 2013
    Don’t know why are you concerning for the non-removable battery. Many phones have non-removable battery these days.And very few needs to replaced.
    - anony
      October 1, 2013
      “And very few needs to replaced.”
      [Citation needed]
      Your use case may not need them but other people do (surprise eh?).
    - Amit
      October 1, 2013
      How many charge cycle batteries last? I had a Motorola defy and battery lasted for just over 1 year. The value of mi3 will be zero after 1 year.
      - andres
        October 1, 2013
        i don’t think so, what is the price for any Xiaomi today? for sure is not $0
        Amit
        October 1, 2013
        How much you are going to get for your mi3 if battery dies in a year
Bart
September 30, 2013
Do not buy a phone for the lousy after sales service, inflexibilty where to deliver putside China or the high probability that you will receive a unit with different specs than advertised. But specs are not over the top, price is fair and you will not regret to buy within a year a by then more ‘state of the art’ phpne. In my case, replace the OrientPhone Mega 6.5.

Rasmus
September 30, 2013
I am looking forward to get my Mi3. The design and specs just look very compelling. If the phone, as expected, performs the way I hope – I will definitely consider the new television as well.
– I have one question regarding the Android ROM-system. With the acquisition of Hugo Barra and its expected global expansion, how will that effect the OS?
I will move back to Europe in June, and hope to have a phone that is useful there.
I’ve seen some rooting guides to the Android system, but I don’t know if that is possible. Just like the phone, the specs and the prize.

DN
September 30, 2013
I want Xiaomi Mi3, but i dont know if have portuguese language.
- 53r610
  October 1, 2013
  if not, they will make one! https://www.miuiportugal.pt/
- Joe
  October 1, 2013
  I think I might wait for the oppo find 7 I had an oppo find 5 but my aunt liked it and she needed a new phone and I gave it to her. I’m torn between buying a lenovo k900 or the zopo zp990 tomorrow I was waiting for the zp990 gizchina review before I forked over some money but yeah I still don’t know which one I want.
- Kiswum
  October 4, 2013
  The Hongmi has a multi language version (1 month after dev’ers received this phone). Multilanguage wouldn’t be a problem if you flash it through the website of xiaomi.eu.

Brock
October 1, 2013
I would like to get the Meizu MX3 the most. I like its design and size and the screen ratio is interesting. In particular the audio features look good but I dont know much about Flyme OS. Currently I am using MIUI on my Samsung Galaxy S (I9000) which is running fine but multitasking and the screen size is what is making me want to upgrade.

Petri
October 1, 2013
Oppo N1, i like the design. Also considering to buy their TV. Anyone know if the tv has english menus?
Shay Legacy
October 1, 2013
Xiaomi Mi3 (the China Unicom Snapdragon 800 model). Price + performance is enough said. Love the design but hate the size of it though. Hope to see a Mi3 killer that can beat this and top it.
Ibrahim
October 1, 2013
Looking to get a Xiaomi Mi3; Snapdragon version,
But don’t know how to get my hands on these beasts.

NinjaBear
October 1, 2013
Ofcourse its going to be Mi3 for me all the way. Amazing price for such sweet specs but more than anything, I really love the MIUI V5 that’s going to be running in it.

Marius
October 1, 2013
I’m getting the Haier w910. I’ve though long and hard about this. I need a cheap phone that has a good Qualcomm SOC and the Haier does have the MSM8260a which even though dual core is a Krait @ 1.5 with Adreno 225 GPU.
I plan on hacking it to get all I need, including Cyanogenmodd and for $123 it’s also waterproof. Perfect device for me except for the battery maybe which is non-removable.
I don’t want to spend too much on a Chinese phone as I’m not from China and if it breaks down that’s that. Also I might need to tear it apart and I don’t want to do that to an expensive phone.
Besides this dual core Qualcomm is almost on the same level as the quad core MTK6589 so I guess that says something.
- Amit
  October 1, 2013
  - Marius
    October 1, 2013
    Nope, it’s not. I might succeed in getting it to work but it won’t be easy. There’s no open source kernel, this is the main problem.
    - Rdmkr
      October 1, 2013
      Good choice; I consider this one of the most underrated chinaphones based on what I read about it (I ordered it for a friend and will know more when she receives it). It actually scores higher than MTK6589 1.2Ghz on pretty much every benchmark except antutu and is priced about $60 less than the average HD mtk6589 phone, and comes with goodies like water proofing like you mentioned.
      - CocaCola
        January 1, 2014
        After having both Haier W910 and a MTK 6589 phone (ZTE V967s) i came to a conclusion that Haier is a much better phone. The interesting thing is that he is a dual core phone and the MTK phone is a quad core phone but Haier W910 still works faster and runs hard games with no problem and a high fps rate (Asphalt 7,8, GTA SA…) while the MTK phone lags. And after chaning the ROM to 4.1.2 bassrockers rom he gets a score of 16000 while ZTE gets 13000 on the Antutu benchmark.
    - Amit
      October 1, 2013

Job_CF
October 1, 2013
I would love to buy a phone from a top manufacturer like Xiaomi, Meizu, Oppo or ZTE.
My requirements include dual SIM, SD Card and replaceable battery. So they all got filtered out.
Now looking for a sub 5″ phone Jiayu, Zopo, ThL and Iocean X7.
dtmpower
October 1, 2013
Depending on how my experience with the Mi2S goes, I’ll be looking for a MRK6589T dual sim or a Xiaomi Hongmi WCDMA,

liljohn
October 1, 2013
definitely MI3, build quality, specs, price, and miui! and a friend can help me get one, hopefully…
hoang vung
October 1, 2013
For me I still waiting for mi3. The reason is quite like Andy. I also using Mi2 and very impressed with what xiaomi done!

beny
October 1, 2013
Hi,
i bought 2x neo n003, 2x iocean x7 and 2x umi x2 all 6589T 2GB. Non of this models have 100% working GPS. In NEO gps is working – i have fix after sometimes 10 minutes sometimes after 1 minute. Umi x2 i have fix in one of 10 trys to get it. in iOcean it is not working at all . I used different ROM’s and i used all methods in internet to get it. I will try to solder wire copper antenna to iocean like some video on youtube showed it. But i bought this phones for my firm for employs. How i can give them phones with soldered wire antennas ? DONT buy phones on Mediatek if you want working GPS. On samsung s2 iphone i had fix even in building near window. Alsow on goophone x7 which i have – GPS is not working at all, also proximity sensor is not working. In all models which i have there is problem with light sensor which is showing for example 10lux or in full light 20lux or 1600 or 1800 – and there is problem with automatic brightness control on screen. if i would know all this i would definitely bought samsung s2 for all where all is working and it is good phone. I have samsung s2 for my private usage. there is fix in 5 second every time and all sensors are working and the price is 300$ like all chines that i bought. Every time i see there is something wrong with chines mediatek phones.
- devast
  October 1, 2013
  It was your own (stupid) decision to buy overhyped third rate chinese phones. It is not mediateks fault at all. zte v987 has good gps afaik. huawei g700 has good gps(i own one). Plenty of lenovo phones have good gps (p780, etc).
  I’m also pretty sure, that the upcoming xiaomi hongmi wcdma version will have perfect gps.
  This shit happens, when you buy chinese stuff relying only on specs.
  And to make this post more disturbing: As long as ppl buy their crap phones, they won’t even try to fix it. You can be sure, that their mt6592 phones will have useless gps as well. They are also really overpriced at $300, but that’s another matter…
  - DanciN
    October 2, 2013
    Where can i read about which phones have good GPS module and so on? Becouse what i see that those phones are not bad its first comment i see on bad gps
thierry
October 1, 2013
I might go for a HDC One S6. Was waiting for a device with MTK6589T and which has hd instead of fhd so it’de be fast. For 205 dollar shippign included and with 16 g rom and 1 gb ram this looks better then the Jiayu g4t (220 dollar for 1g ram and 4 gig rom). To bad the screen size is 5 inch and not 4.7…

Simon
October 1, 2013
I think I might just get the Nexus 5, but see for Xiaomi are bringing out this time next year. It will be interesting to see what their MiOS will be. (If it materialises).

Zinko_pt
October 1, 2013
Xiaomi Mi3 will probably be my next one to replace my long time companion HTC HD2.
Quality 5″, CPU/GPU, storage, RAM and build quality (coming from “metal” HTC) should be my main criteria.
I know there will be a Portuguese Miui sooner or late ported to this phone, so that won´t be a issue.
As for battery, as long as it is over 3000Mah, I still got a smalll external USB 5000Mah pocket size…

Nick
October 1, 2013
To be honest, I think I will be going Nexus 5. After my experience with my Vowney V5 I won’t be buying another MTK phone at least till the next generation as the MT6589/T is just too unreliable for GPS. GPS on my V5 has never worked despite trying all the fixes but even a lock taking 30 secs to a minute is unacceptable, my nexus 7 first gen locks in a few seconds every time even in the house.
I was considering a Mi3 but with both my Mi One and my Vowney V5 they both have 3G issues, signal dropping out or unreliable. I’ve decided I want a phone that has been tested on UK networks as I want roaming on EE to work properly. There is also the small matter of 4G which I may want to upgrade my contract too in due course and obviously most Chinese phones do not support.

Jogo
October 1, 2013
I’m only about MI3 and i can’t wait Xiaomi to make it possible for Europe. Snapdragon 800. I was a bit disappointed about the display size (only 5′ shame!) and not dual sim slots. I like the 64 version and it’s perfect for me. 128 will be fantastic in future! I hope the price for Eu will be also affordable! Here in Europe everything paid in Euro is SOOO Expensive! Damn it!
kleautzak
October 1, 2013

Allanitomwesh
October 1, 2013
I’m liking the Xiaomi Hongmi,Neo N003 and Meizu MX3 at the moment.I’m also eyeing the JiaYu S1 to see how badly resellers screw us over. Much as I like the OPPO N1 I can’t get over the size of it,and of course,I’m more interested ind the Find 7. So depending on the reseller price,either the Hongmi or N003 until the Find 7/Samsung 64bit/Intel inside phones comes later on.
SlypDrip
October 1, 2013
Faea F2S. Why? Offficial CM10.2 Support

Tadas
October 1, 2013
Xiaomi MI-3 TEGRA 4 definitely. Because of power (36,5k Antutu) , price (max 350 pounds) desing (aluminum-magnesium body), Tegra zone (same games as on other androids + super duper insane graphics mod ).

anony
October 1, 2013
I guess this phone is cheap enough that the no expendable storage flaw is easily overlooked but really people, if you don’t use that many storage on a phone chance are you won’t need the power of something like S800 either for gaming or anything else. S600 will probably easily fit your need and probably will have better battery life too.
It’s a stupid paradox, phone are getting closer to PC with apps and games getting bigger and bigger but at the same time manufacturer deliberately put more restriction just to squeeze people who don’t know better but absolutely have to has the latest and greatest even though they probably won’t need them.
The saddest part about all this however, is that the scheme is working, people are buying those crippled device. Oh well good things we have better alternative for those who really need them albeit significantly more expensive. Sigh.

Matjaz
October 1, 2013
I am buying the ZTE V967s. Becose it is very cheap (139USD) for the power, becose it is said to be good quality item and becose there are some custom ROMs for it.
I also like the design very much.
I realy need the phone as soon as possible, but if i could wait i would buy the Xiaomi Hongmi
- Eugenio
  October 2, 2013
  it’s 10 dollar less on 1949 deal… pretty cheap for a rather good phone indeed

josejorge
October 1, 2013
do you guys know where to preorder the mi3 with snapdragon 800 i really want one
Nice Guy
October 2, 2013
i might buy XIAOMI HONGMI for daily use and Mi3 for spare
gschadenberg
October 2, 2013
It seems what I’m looking for is still not available.
I want a 6589T (or better), 2GB, 32GB, removable battery, dual sim, sd card extension, NFC and all this in an attractive package. Oh and <350 dollars.
So far the FAEA F2s comes closest, so I might wait for a 2/32GB version to come.
I also like the CM10.2 cooperation there.
Anybody any other ideas, options?
- Gman
  October 2, 2013
  Hm, Andy, could you remove my emailadress please?
  I used the form incorrectly (couldn’t see properly on my browser).
  Thnx

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