Bundi404: Thanks for the heads-up on the Fortress website; didn't realize they have a mirror site in English now

I'm much more comfortable buying from them. However they only have up to Tri-band and the N. American GSM850 is a freq I really need for my American and Canadian Sims.
dtsm: Thanks for the info on the China Unicom phone plan. Will get someone to translate it for me

However it still looks like having a dual phone is probably the better way to go in terms of cost.
Sorry about the similar post in the other thread

I had some more local questions that I thought would get answered here but overlooked there
How are the Mainland Chinese phones? Do they have quadband? & are they reliable?