Wifi Devise in China?

[JohnnyC]

I am in the process of going to china next week...been looking into was of communicating to family while we are there...

Wifi is hit and miss there ...however we are in major city areas and i think it will work out.

Q: Can a wifi accessable devise from usa be used also in china or are they area specific?

Q: What is a good thing (devise) that will access wifi ...netbooks? other?

I am new technology illiterate...however i can learn

I tryed searches and other posts...but...nada for answers

anybody mudders here in china? what do you use?

thank you in advance

 

[45Kevin]

My wife spent January in Vietnam. Wi-fi, even though advertised at many places was sketchy.

She used skype whenever possible, although it was often slow with bad quality sound and video.

What she did most often was to telphone our landline through skype. I think she paid skype $25 for unlimited world wide access to landlines. Those calls sounded like typical landline to landline calls. Great quality.

She was using her Mac. A friend that was travelling with her was using a Mac notbook or ipad devise and had slightly better reception with the wi-fi. We are going to Europe in a couple of months and will just take our iphones.

 

[retrofive]

The signal like mentioned maybe weak/sketchy, but Wifi in general is a standard protocol. So any wifi A/B/G/N type of wireless equipped device should get you online.

 

[hey you]

Skype is the way to go. I used our Ipad, Iphone, and even an Itouch to communicate while in Europe. It worked great.

 

[JohnnyC]

I'll look into the skype much more now...question about the iPod touch

i thought it was really just for music? you can go online as well?

we can probably swing the price for one of them...ipad and iphone are out of our reach for now

 

[hey you]

On the front of iPod touch is a built-in camera perfect for making video calls. I also check my email, take pictures and video, weather, etc. One feature I used was an app. that searches for free wi-fi sites. I usually ended up at a starbucks and used thier wi-fi instead. I bought the larger GB to increase my storage capacity. Awesome little device, but an Iphone does the same thing.

 

[FJ60Seth]

Don't enter any confidential info (like logging into email) when using public wifi in China.

 

[45Kevin]

I think the ipod touch is the same as an iphone except it doesn't have a phone. All other functions are the same.

 

[JohnnyC]

Skype is the way to go. I used our Ipad, Iphone, and even an Itouch to communicate while in Europe. It worked great.

thank you all for the information...

I have a question for the more tech savy...

So we got the Ipod touch (what we could aford) and got the headphones w/mic...wifi hooked up well..VERY cool little thing!!

I want to do the skype...it's only like $10 a month for unlimited premium calling ...however they ask for a country to call to for your unlimited calling.

the question:
do you know if you set it up for unlimited to china? or usa?

or is that a stupid question? i would think usa...however would i get hit with the higher rate when i call china #rs while in china?

this new fangled stuff...is ... well...new to me please bear with me

 

[JohnnyC]

with the recomendations...we did go with skype...set it up for unlimited to the usa and got a local # so relatives here can call with a regular phone...skype customer service ....well...sucks

would be nice to have an actual # to call and ask questions to...everything ...question related is to ask on their forum...and getting responces is few and far between...

just need to find how it get the ipod to ring more than twice

thanks again all

 

[hey you]

Sorry to hear that Skype doesn't respond to your questions. It is really easy, but you need to set it up with your friends and relatives prior to traveling. Also, I set up a secondary email account so that my personal info wasn't stolen. I used a "hotmail" address. I still use it for BS and junk mail.

Have a great trip.

 

[Japan4X4]

Any device with wifi will work fine. I have used Blackberries and my Samsung Galaxy there with no issues. Laptop works fine. Most decent hotels will also have wired access. If you have problems just call the front desk and they will send three techs to your room at 03:00 even if they have to roll them out of bed.

If you use google servers for email or file storage you may have issues. Seems the junta in China is not that warm with the big G.

Net runs a little slower there.

Public wifi is not that common. wifi at all out side of cities is not on. Like if you have not seen an other vehicle in several hours and no one uses electric lights don't count on much.

 

[alia176]

I used Skype when I was in a hotel in China for talking with my wife. I used the wired network from my hotel room and the speed was slow, so no video but audio worked great. I didn't do any land line calling, simply called my wife's skype account from my skype account.

Last week, I had a conf skype call with my co-workers in UAE and in NJ using audio only and it worked great. Again, this was a skype account calling two other skype accounts, no land line stuff.

Wi-fi tends to make me nervous in foreign countries, especially in China. If you can go wired, I'd suggest going that way.