Chinese Smartphone to America?

[blairharrington]

Purchased the Zopo ZP950 last night from a Chinese online retailer named Lightake. Picked DHL as my carrier. Anybody with experience or knowledge about this sort of thing know if I'll have potential problems receiving this device (customs)?

 

[jacktesterson]

should be fine as far as getting. You probably will have to pay import tax as its coming from China.

Personally, I'd avoid if you paid $280 plus shipping. It uses the mtk mt6577 which seems to only be used in Chinese knock offs.

The mtk mt6577 Chipset scores similarly to a Tegra 2 in Performance from what I've seen... and your device is a 720p screen. That's not great of performance for $280.00.

I'm sure it will work well for most things though. There are videos on youtube of this exact phone, it seems to browse fine, etc.

Enjoy.

 

[blairharrington]

should be fine as far as getting. You probably will have to pay import tax as its coming from China.

Personally, I'd avoid if you paid $280 plus shipping. It uses the mtk mt6577 which seems to only be used in Chinese knock offs.

The mtk mt6577 Chipset scores similarly to a Tegra 2 in Performance from what I've seen... and your device is a 720p screen. That's not great of performance for $280.00.

I'm sure it will work well for most things though. There are videos on youtube of this exact phone, it seems to browse fine, etc.

Enjoy.

Any idea roughly how much the import tax will be?

I paid $290 total. That doesn't include any (potential) import tax.

I watched just about every YouTube video there is for the phone before making the purchase. My main uses are browsing and popular apps. I (think) it should be suffice for my needs. Not concerned about it being 720p.

 

[ImDonly1]

Most Chinese sellers undervalue the shipments. So, they probably wrote that the package is only worth $20. I doubt there will be any import tax.

I've ordered packages in bulk from China a few times and never got a fee. It came via DHL in about 2-3 days. Pretty fast shipping times.

Also for $290, why not just get the Nexus 4? Or did you want a 5.7" phone?
FYI, the specs on the page say it supports
Support 3G network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 & WCDMA 850/2100 MHz
So, it only supports the 850 band on ATT, not the 1900 for 3G. Might be semi-congested on that band?

 

[blairharrington]

Most Chinese sellers undervalue the shipments. So, they probably wrote that the package is only worth $20. I doubt there will be any import tax.

I've ordered packages in bulk from China a few times and never got a fee. It came via DHL in about 2-3 days. Pretty fast shipping times.

Also for $290, why not just get the Nexus 4? Or did you want a 5.7" phone?
FYI, the specs on the page say it supports
Support 3G network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 & WCDMA 850/2100 MHz
So, it only supports the 850 band on ATT, not the 1900 for 3G. Might be semi-congested on that band?

I wanted a phablet with an IPS panel.

The site I ordered from said that they will be on holiday until the middle of the month. I see this message on many Chinese sites. Must be a national thing. Happy to hear you got no fee with you DHL shipments. Hopefully mine will arrive with no fees or issues.

Can you tell me more about the 850 band? Will I have any problems?

 

[PeeluckyDuckee]

I wanted a phablet with an IPS panel.

The site I ordered from said that they will be on holiday until the middle of the month. I see this message on many Chinese sites. Must be a national thing. Happy to hear you got no fee with you DHL shipments. Hopefully mine will arrive with no fees or issues.

Can you tell me more about the 850 band? Will I have any problems?

Chinese national new year's holiday where a lot of business' take 10 days off work.

 

[blairharrington]

Chinese national new year's holiday where a lot of business' take 10 days off work.

Thanks.

 

[bearxor]

Most Chinese sellers undervalue the shipments. So, they probably wrote that the package is only worth $20. I doubt there will be any import tax.

I've ordered packages in bulk from China a few times and never got a fee. It came via DHL in about 2-3 days. Pretty fast shipping times.

Also for $290, why not just get the Nexus 4? Or did you want a 5.7" phone?
FYI, the specs on the page say it supports
Support 3G network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 & WCDMA 850/2100 MHz
So, it only supports the 850 band on ATT, not the 1900 for 3G. Might be semi-congested on that band?

Also, AT&T doesn't have 850mhz licenses everywhere. Charlotte, for instance, is 1900mhz only so I guess it would only do GPRS here.

 

[elitejp]

Chinese national new year's holiday where a lot of business' take 10 days off work.

Not only is chinese new years just about in full swing the shipping companies arent taking any more orders. So even if you wanted to keep your shop open you still couldnt get it sent

 

[blairharrington]

Also, AT&T doesn't have 850mhz licenses everywhere. Charlotte, for instance, is 1900mhz only so I guess it would only do GPRS here.

I live in a suburb of Boston and I have no idea about how the 850 band would operate here. I'm not sure if this is related but I did use an iPhone 3G and iPhone 4 with no issues in the past in my town.

Am I'm in trouble by relying on 850 for 3G? Other than my town, surrounding towns, and the city of Boston, I do visit Manhattan and Los Angeles a couple times a year.

 

[luv2liv]

so you will use AT&T with this Zopo phone?
please let me know if they will detect your phone as a smartphone and force a data plan on you. i would really appreciate it!

 

[blairharrington]

so you will use AT&T with this Zopo phone?
please let me know if they will detect your phone as a smartphone and force a data plan on you. i would really appreciate it!

That's my plan. I'm currently a post paid AT&T customer. I doubt I can answer your question though seeing that I'm a current customer with a data plan.

 

[bearxor]

I live in a suburb of Boston and I have no idea about how the 850 band would operate here. I'm not sure if this is related but I did use an iPhone 3G and iPhone 4 with no issues in the past in my town.

Am I'm in trouble by relying on 850 for 3G? Other than my town, surrounding towns, and the city of Boston, I do visit Manhattan and Los Angeles a couple times a year.

This map is a few years old, but AT&T no longer separates their 850/1900 MHz coverage. Phones meant for AT&T, like the iPhone, are fine because they'll do HSPA on all of AT&T's bands and just switch.

http://www.cellularmaps.com/att_850_1900.shtml

Looking at the map, it looks like Boston has both 850 and 1900 coverage.

 

[blairharrington]

This map is a few years old, but AT&T no longer separates their 850/1900 MHz coverage. Phones meant for AT&T, like the iPhone, are fine because they'll do HSPA on all of AT&T's bands and just switch.

http://www.cellularmaps.com/att_850_1900.shtml

Looking at the map, it looks like Boston has both 850 and 1900 coverage.

Thank you for this. I probably won't know for sure until I try it myself. I've encountered a person using this exact same phone in Manhattan with Straight Talk and he is getting consistent 3G service so that makes me feel a little less anxious for now.

 

[ImDonly1]

That's my plan. I'm currently a post paid AT&T customer. I doubt I can answer your question though seeing that I'm a current customer with a data plan.

If thry don't detect it, you can switch your postpaid data plan to unlimited flip phone data plan for $10-15 per month.

 

[corkyg]

Hmmmm! I was under the impression that most all of our phones are Chinese. ???

 

[blairharrington]

If thry don't detect it, you can switch your postpaid data plan to unlimited flip phone data plan for $10-15 per month.

Honestly I'll probably take my phone to AT&T to get the right SIM and make sure everything is kosher. Not really interested in what you are suggesting.

 

[blairharrington]

Hmmmm! I was under the impression that most all of our phones are Chinese. ???

The phone I'm talking about is a knockoff Galaxy Note. ZTE and Huawei are reputable Chinese brands. Zopo, from what I gather, is a tier below so most likely their devices feature cheaper and less stable internals and externals.

 

[jacktesterson]

The phone I'm talking about is a knockoff Galaxy Note. ZTE and Huawei are reputable Chinese brands. Zopo, from what I gather, is a tier below so most likely their devices feature cheaper and less stable internals and externals.

They quite often have buggy roms too with no upgrade paths or fixes available.

I'd avoid Zopo, but I'm not the OP.

ZTE/Huawei >>>>>> Zopo

 

[blairharrington]

They quite often have buggy roms too with no upgrade paths or fixes available.

I'd avoid Zopo, but I'm not the OP.

ZTE/Huawei >>>>>> Zopo

Yeah I definitely think it's a risker purchase than ZTE and Huawei but I'm going to take a chance.

What if I don't want to root my device or anything? Am I still in danger?

 

[Midwayman]

Probably would have been better off with lightly used gt-n7000. :\ Much stronger development for it, and I think they're selling around the same price now.

 

[blairharrington]

Probably would have been better off with lightly used gt-n7000. :\ Much stronger development for it, and I think they're selling around the same price now.

I hate amoled screens. I'd rather take my chances on a risky IPS phablet.

 

[jacktesterson]

I hate amoled screens. I'd rather take my chances on a risky IPS phablet.

Well I agree with you there. I dislike Amoled screens too, although I did like my Note N7000 as a whole. (I went Galaxy Nexus to Note N7000 to HTC One X to HTC One S to Nexus 4 last year alone). I just get bored sometimes.


Good luck with it.

As far as the bands go, hopefully that doesn't become an issue. I'm not familiar with what bands are needed for what providers in the US other than AT&T as they are the same as 95% of Canada's coverage.

 

[Midwayman]

As far as the bands go, hopefully that doesn't become an issue. I'm not familiar with what bands are needed for what providers in the US other than AT&T as they are the same as 95% of Canada's coverage.

For HSPA+ IIRC tmobile is mostly 1700, with some cities converted their older 1900 network to HSPA+. ATT is mostly 1900 for HSPA+

 

[blairharrington]

So for a smartphone to operate on AT&T's HSPA+ network I need to see if it's compatible with the 1900 Ghz band? Can it not obtain such speeds on the 850 Ghz band?

I've just sent Lightake an email to cancel my order. Additional research made me question this purchase. If I purchase a Chinese smartphone in the future it's going to be ZTE, Huawei, or Lenovo.

Hopefully my order can be cancelled and I'll be refunded.

Thanks for your responses.