Has anyone ever used a China version phone as their daily?

[Akita]

Does anyone have experience using a China ver phone (specifically Xiaomi) as their daily in the States or Europe? I recently saw a really good deal on a Redmi 10x but I know that phone has never gotten a global version. Would it be as simple as choosing English, removing bloatware and installing the playstore or is it more complicated than that? Would I have to flash GAPPS or would just installing google apps like maps & gmail be ok ? Preferably I'd like to not root the phone but I do have experience with rooted phones ( although I've only ever rooted android emulators which probably doesn't count tho). Basically if anyone has experience using a China rom as their daily driver I'd like to know what I'd need to expect ? 

[Seyrren]

Not a Xiaomi, but i have a Honor Note 8 (in Europe), no rooting required to get GAPPS and mainly Play installed, it did take me a bit to figure it out, but i dunno if i spent more then an hour on it or even 30 minutes on my first try. Getting rid of the chinese apps stuff, well for a few it its not possible without rooting, but most can be disabled and never bother you again (i'm saying this if you don't root the phone), there's this wallet app and their custom store app that that can't be disabled but it never affected me. Just google for:

 

"installing google play on Redmi 10x"

 

And you should get a basic understanding if rooting is necessary or not to install gapps.

 

I never regretted getting this phone everything works fine (i'm talking about my experience up to know with the Honor Note and of course you can use English. (this part refers to the Redmi or pretty much any android chinese phone, i never seen a Chinese smartphone phone that doesn't come with multiple languages, and i've seen quite a few of them).

[dizmo]

www.kimovil.com

Use this website, and it'll tell you what bands you need, and what are missing from the phone you're looking at. I personally wouldn't get a phone missing any bands, but a few might be ok depending on what the towers use in your area. Not having the right bands means the phone will not work.

[Akita]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

www.kimovil.com

Use this website, and it'll tell you what bands you need, and what are missing from the phone you're looking at. I personally wouldn't get a phone missing any bands, but a few might be ok depending on what the towers use in your area. Not having the right bands means the phone will not work.

Hey thanks for reminding me about that! I use Tracfone GSM which basically uses other carrier's towers. I checked on Kimovil and it looks like this phone has 3 4g bands that almost all carriers support and 1 5g band that T mobile supports. Should I be concerned? 

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, Akita said:

Hey thanks for reminding me about that! I use Tracfone GSM which basically uses other carrier's towers. I checked on Kimovil and it looks like this phone has 3 4g bands that almost all carriers support and 1 5g band that T mobile supports. Should I be concerned? 

No way to know without you digging deeper and finding out what is used in your area. Like I said, I wouldn't get a phone missing any bands of the carrier I was on.

[Donut417]

6 hours ago, Akita said:

Should I be concerned? 

Depends on which service provider Tracfone uses. To my understanding most MVNO's use a specific service provider. There are a few I have seen that may have a sim that can access multiple carriers at a time, but many provide you a sim based on what carrier has the best coverage in your area. Like Ive seen providers who will ask if you want a Verizon, AT&T or TMobile sim.  

[Akita]

22 hours ago, dizmo said:

No way to know without you digging deeper and finding out what is used in your area. Like I said, I wouldn't get a phone missing any bands of the carrier I was on.

 

15 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Depends on which service provider Tracfone uses. To my understanding most MVNO's use a specific service provider. There are a few I have seen that may have a sim that can access multiple carriers at a time, but many provide you a sim based on what carrier has the best coverage in your area. Like Ive seen providers who will ask if you want a Verizon, AT&T or TMobile sim.  

Both of you just gave me the brilliant idea of pulling up my current phone and the 10x on Kimovil side by side to see which bands they share in common. Luckily the 10x shares almost all of the 4g bands that my Note 7 has compatible with my current network. Judging from the fact that I've had little connectivity issues w this phone, it looks like the 10x should be perfectly fine atleast for 4g. Big thanks to everyone who've replied to this post, you've all been really really helpful!

[Roswell]

Imported phones will soon lose the ability to make actual phone calls unless your carrier supports unvalidated VoLTE, which it probably doesn't. Calls fall back to 3G on 99% of imported phones and 3G will soon be gone.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, Roswell said:

Imported phones will soon lose the ability to make actual phone calls unless your carrier supports unvalidated VoLTE, which it probably doesn't. Calls fall back to 3G on 99% of imported phones and 3G will soon be gone.

That kinda depends on provider. Verizon decided not to shut down their 3G network last I read. Too many devices were still using it. I think T Mobile has 3G running as well. 

[Roswell]

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

That kinda depends on provider. Verizon decided not to shut down their 3G network last I read. Too many devices were still using it. I think T Mobile has 3G running as well. 

Verizon never had 3G GSM, so most imported phones can’t make calls on their network anyway as said phones don’t support CDMA/EVDO.

 

AT&T is shutting down all 3G in 6 months. T-Mobile will be the last one, though they have been saying that they’ll be shutting down 3G sometime in 2022.

[PrizmJKR]

My global version Redmi Note 7 can do VoLTE on T-Mobile, so can my father's global Redmi Note 9 Pro. AT&T has their stupid VoLTE whitelist so those will never work, and Verizon is a big question mark.