Originally Posted by
tripe
I am going flying into Beijing and out of Hong Kong. My Sprint EVO is outrageously expensive in Beijing and won't work at all in HK. I've looked into mobile phone rentals sites like
www.pandaphone.com, but I don't know if I trust them or if I am getting ripped off. Can I just rent a phone at PEK, or what?
Renting a phone is almost never a wise thing to do and a way to spend more money than you need to.
Buy an unlocked dual band (900/1800), triband (900/1800/1900) or quad band (850/900/1800/1900) phone and when you get to Hong Kong buy a local prepaid SIM card for the equivalent of $10 or so. Save the phone for the next trip you make to Asia, Africa or Europe. Looking in eBay for 900/1800 phones I see phones for as little as $14. Tribands are cheap too at around $30 or $40. Quad band phones such as the Moto Razr V3 are pretty cheap now since they're eight years old. Unless you feel you must have the most au courant phone you can get something that will save you lots of money over renting. Renting a phone is throwing away money in my opinion.
If you're looking on eBay just input the search term 900/1800 phones (and similar for the other types I've listed.)