use Nexus 7 tablet in China

[jdy18]

Hoping to use my Nexus 7 tablet in China in a few weeks. Anyway have experience using it there? Any problems (other than finding Wifi spots?)

 

[jedilow]

I haven't had experience with the Nexus 7 in China, but I have with my Evo 4G and laptops (over a number of years)... you shouldn't have any problems. Wifi shouldn't even be a problem anymore, the last couple of years it's been pretty easy to find wifi (at the very least you can get it at any Starbucks). You might want to load some VPN software on it though (find things that have been tested for China) so you can avoid the firewall.

 

[LarryReibstein]

If you're out in the boonies anywhere on Earth, there'll be next-to-none Wi-Fi service.

But more importantly, I want to get a Nexus 7 for when I go to China in a couple weeks, especially for its reported feature of great voice search - way better than Siri.

But I wondered if the Nexus 7 was smart enough to direct our (voice) searches to google.com.hk, because standard google.com is blocked from Chinese Wi-Fi.

I called the tech support folks at Google, and they told me that they hardly sell the Nexus 7 in China, and they have no experience with nor evidence whether the (voice) searches would fail.
They suspected that those searches could not be made from within China proper.

Does anyone out here know?

 

[bunnymoira]

I am from China. When I went home to visit my parents in Beijing. I just type Google.com on their computer to do online search. Never had a problem. I don't think Google is blocked in China. YouTube is.

 

[gbears2010]

I went to China to study for two years... You won't have a problem using Nexus 7 as all that is required is wifi. Google is not blocked but is very unstable in China and will randomly return 404 Page not found at times, it in which case you can use other search engines like Bing and yahoo. YouTube, Facebook, and and a lot of websites containing certain keywords are blocked by the Chinese firewall by default. You can get around this by downloading VPN software such as Free gate, or or by signing up for a paid van service which tends to be more stable and faster. You should sign up for the service before you get to China because a lot of the vpn websites are itself blocked by the firewall.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[ThunderDroidNexus]

I'm curious about this as well. Does anyone know of a good (free) VPN software that works? I mostly want to try to use the Nexus 7 to watch a football game while I'm over there, probably using the ESPN or Xfinity app

 

[jstar8000]

I am from China. When I went home to visit my parents in Beijing. I just type Google.com on their computer to do online search. Never had a problem. I don't think Google is blocked in China. YouTube is.

it actually is blocked. however, hong kong is not, so when you type google.com it automatically redirects you to the nearest server, which is in hong kong. But because of the distance between the locations, you speed will be slower because it will go to hong kong and back.

 

[1andylock]

I was in China last week for 3 weeks prior to that also with my Nexus 7. No problem. Google play does not allow some apps to be loaded but when I got back to the UK they loaded then. So this is not a Google problem it is an app restriction.
So take it to China and have fun.
And there are WiFi spots everywhere. If you can't find on walk into any hotel.

 

[kulsum shaban]

I am from China. When I went home to visit my parents in Beijing. I just type Google.com on their computer to do online search. Never had a problem. I don't think Google is blocked in China. YouTube is.

Youtube is blocked in china and youtube alternate is yoku i am also live in china and i am using StrongVPN(StrongVPN.com - Providing high speed, unlimited bandwidth, multiple country VPN accounts for over 100,000 users. Since 1995) for youtube and facebook and use Btguard(BTGuard - Anonymous BitTorrent Services) For torrent purpose