4 common Chinese smartphone problems and how to avoid them

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Everyone likes cheap Chinese flagships. It seems, why are smartphones of A-brands needed at all now, if they are the same, but cost more? But in fact, with devices from China, you will surely face some unpleasant problem.

1. Useless apps out of the box

In China, many of the world's services do not work, so manufacturers install analogs. But we don't need these analogs, and often they don't work or work poorly. You cannot delete unnecessary applications. They waste space and sometimes make themselves felt with intrusive notifications.

Everything is really bad in Xiaomi smartphones: there are even viruses out of the box. They are harmless, but they get in the way, because they brazenly display ads on top of applications and in notifications. This happens due to the fact that the MIUI firmware is open source and it is easy to embed any garbage into it. This is what unscrupulous sellers do.

You will have to get root-rights and delete unnecessary applications manually, or change the firmware to a clean one. In any case, this will most likely have to spend the evening.

If you buy a Chinese smartphone in Russia, you can ask the seller to install the firmware in advance without Chinese services, but they do not always meet halfway.

2. Bad software

Snatching cheap components from the factory, hiring a labor force that is almost free by our standards, renting a room for a penny and putting together a good - on paper - smartphone is not difficult. But not everyone can write high-quality software for him.

Firmware often looks terrible, slows down and is not updated. The Chinese flagship may not perform better than some state-owned Sony, despite the top-end processor and a lot of RAM. Because Sony can optimize software, but Dyadya Lyao Company does not.

3. Low quality cameras

With the resolution, everything is in order even for state employees: it is difficult to find a smartphone whose main camera will be less than 13 megapixels, and the front one is less than 5 megapixels. Another question is that they photograph badly.

A camera is not only a sensor, but also a software for it. For example, many Chinese mid-range smartphones are equipped with the Samsung S5K3L8 module, but they take pictures in different ways. And more often than not it is bad.

4. Copied design

You can buy a good smartphone at a great price and enjoy the purchase, but the mood will be spoiled by constant questions about what kind of iPhone you have. With design, the Chinese are on "you": they either do something awkward, or simply copy Apple smartphones. Exceptions are very rare.

For some, such questions do not mean anything. But every time explaining that you do not have an iPhone, but Meizu or something else, will quickly tire.

What to do?

The solution is one: read reviews and reviews. It is better to spend time and buy a Chinese smartphone from among the successful ones than to drop a few hundred dollars for something awkward. If you don't have the time or desire to dig into the reviews, then buy smartphones of A-brands. They are more expensive, but no surprises.

Maybe then don't take the Chinese at all? No, there are really decent manufacturers in China: Lenovo, Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, Meizu, OnePlus. Problems with them happen much less often and are most often caused by the fact that you order devices intended for sale in China. They can be easily solved by simply changing the firmware.

Lesser known and trusted manufacturers should be looked at with caution and reviews and reviews should be scrutinized. Their characteristics are wonderful, the price is even better, but there is a great risk of buying and then regretting.

Nowadays, there are practically no Chinese smartphones with which you will not need to tinker at all. Somewhere you need to change the firmware, somewhere to get root-rights and remove unnecessary applications, you just have to put up with something.

However, it is much more difficult to run into a frankly bad smartphone from China now than two or three years ago. Then there were much more irreparable problems with iron: they installed bad sensors, cheated with the battery capacity, and assembled phones very badly.