I am planning to move to China at the end of February for my PhD studies. Supposedly, I would be there for 3 years. I’ve never been there and I am getting overwhelmed with the things I need to know before coming yet a lot of these information seem outdated. That’s why I want to ask things here to be somewhat prepared.
Firstly, I see that having functioning phone is extremely vital in China and that’s why I am thinking about changing my old Samsung. I am thinking about iPhone because previously I encountered information that Apple maps and App Store work without VPN. Please let me know is this information still holds up because when Google this I find articles on how China want to close loophole access to App Store and etc. dated several month ago. If Apple maps and App Store work without vpn, I think that I buy iPhone instead of android phone. However, if it does not work anymore, I rather buy android phone. Also, does Apple maps show bus and train routes and other helpful information? Without this my arrival would be extremely problematic.
Secondly, What kind of VPN you advice to use? I see there are tons of VPN providers, but not sure whether all of them work in China.
Thirdly, I am still playing videogames time-to-time and seems like I will be playing moderately during my PhD. So does steam work without VPN in China? If yes, would my account of foreign country still work there with the whole library I own? I play only single player games, so I mostly need steam to download my games and keep track on how many hours I’m playing.
VPN: ASTRILL ( get it while you are still abroad if possible) .
Phone: iPhone for having the appstore working without VPN (but VPN will be more stable and have more options on android, but iPhone still works well enough).
Steam: No problem to game / download / purchase games while you are in China, you may also benefit from being in China to switch to the chinese store to have RMB prices that are 30-40% cheaper than in the west (you can switch back any time you want) .
UU is needed mostly if you plan to do a lot of online games.
Apple is probably easier, but you can consider buying a Chinese brand like Oppo or Xiaomi, they are cheap and pretty good. I’ve been using my old P30 Pro when i’m travelling to China and it’s working great.
I use LetsVPN and it’s worked pretty great for me so far, the only annoyance is the 2 device limit. I do know a lot of Astrill users though and apparently it’s also reliable. Don’t even bother trying NordVPN or ExpressVPN, neither of them will work despite what most sites say.
Steam worked fine for me without VPN, but some games might not connect correctly if they require an online connection without a VPN. UU is needed for some online games,
I definitely recommend an iPhone. I came with a Huawei P30 Android phone and I had to switch it. Chinese apps are HEAVY as hell. They need stupidly high amounts of storage and can be sluggish on mid tier phones.
My experience after switching to an iPhone here:
Chinese apps seem to be more polished and smoother on iOS
QRs are scanned super quickly
Apple maps with maps in English
To navigate chinese apps you can take a screenshot and just translate all the text on one tap
You can switch regions in the App store to install VPNs or other apps not available in China. I think you need a foreign number for this.
steam works fine here. the latency for steam titles is really great but i think can vary depending on your internet service provider. at my studio i can play regular games with zero noticeable latency issues though i don’t play anything competitive.
I’ve never felt compelled to get a chinese game booster. never had issues with delay in games in more than a decade.
using the chinese steam store is great for prices and the interface stays english so there’s little to no hassle, just the rare game that isn’t on the chinese store, but super rare to not be there. to buy stuff you just buy steam codes on taobao. super simple.
Amateurs will tell you to use Astrill but don’t. It’s a scam. Anyone that’s been here long enough will tell you to use shadowrocket, shadowsocks, v2ray. No one that’s used these proxies will tell you to use Astrill lmao
I apologize if someone else has mentioned this but I think iPhone is a much better choice than android for a few reasons.
I lived in China for nearly 5 years and initially had a Samsung phone, then a few xiaomis and finally an iPhone. If you are technical you can make anything work, but iPhones are easier. For instance, it’s not that easy to have a vpn installed from China, especially on a Chinese phone. But its available on the iPhone app store if you get your phone from abroad.
If you do choose an android phone abroad, you will run into all sorts of issues because google services are blocked. With VPN on, it should work fine. Make sure your VPN is installed before you leave.
The other thing about iPhone is that you can use iMessage and Facetime without VPN, and that can be a huge deal to communicate with people abroad. It will make you feel a lot less isolated socially, especially if you run into vpn troubles. iMessage is also end to end encrypted, although I believe the data might be stored on Chinese servers if you are in China. Still, it’s better security than WeChat… Which you will still need to use, but you should be aware that this isn’t a secure channel to discuss.
Not sure on exact phone model, my original phone wouldnt work here regardless of what I tried.
For VPNs I have heard most work, currently majority of friends here and myself use Astril, it could be considered a little pricey but typically it works, rarely have issues, always here other vpns do have issues frequently
steam does work without a VPN, your account will be fine, using a VPN can help though, sometimes its weird, like downloads wont function with VPN on, some will require VPN, your store location will most likely stay in your home country(steam doesn’t like people converting over to other countries to buy), and if you have troubles with using your bank from home country can use TAOBAO to buy steamdollars but if store location is not updated cannot buy game keys.
Someone else mentioned UU, which helps with getting better ping in games and is cheap, BUT for every single person I know and myself it basically killed our computers so best to avoid unless there is a particular game that you really need it for.
If you are concerned about maps, I cant say about apple, but “android” here works fine with apps like Amaps/ALIPAY/wechat which can handle map/translations/timetables
I did have a look at partners Iphone and maps does auto translate and use pinyan
I just got back from china and I used letsvpn and it was fine.
Another thing that works are roaming services, i heard getting a hong kong sim card with roaming is good (more expensive but perfectly legal).
This is the answer I would have given. I would also expand that if you use your home countries iPhone app store, you can get all the apps that China blocks without VPN.
Yeah I’ve got two apple accounts, my UK one to access the UK App Store, and then I signed up with a Chinese number to get access to the Chinese App Store for local apps.
Do not change Steam to China store unless you have some way to pay that doesn’t include WeChat. I need my wife (Chinese) to buy games for me because if I try and use my WeChat it says I can’t because it’s not linked to a local bank account (which it is of course)
