Awesome, thanks for all of this info! This is really useful information. I will attempt to locate a store that sells China Unicorn sim cards. I suppose I could use my Samsung Galaxy s5 to plug in the sim card and then use it like a hotspot for my tablet?

Unicom stores themselves all sell Unicom SIM cards... and many mom/pop shops do so as well (no need to wait in line or deal with registration matters if you go this route).

Okay, that's good to know, thanks! We are concerned that our phones are not GSM. Does it matter?

You should be okay with Unicom as long as your phones are unlocked.

These days Singapore CBD appears to be the best.

Yeah, none of our phones are unlocked. We will bring the GSM phone, but I've been advised that it may experience technical difficulties. I'm scrambling now for another solution. Is there something else that can accept a SIM card that I can get? My laptop and tablet doesn't have a SIM card slot either.

Optimally, you should try to get your phones unlocked (your carriers can do this for you or you can try it on your own... though I will say that Samsung products are a lot harder to crack than Apple, IME).

Option two: buy a phone when you get to China. Xiaomi's success (some say more valuable than BAT... combined) is no accident; they make great phones, which they retail at rock bottom prices. The problem there is that Androids sold in China generally don't come loaded with Google apps (without a VPN, you can't use Google apps anyway).

Option three: buy a carrier agnostic phone before your trip. I purchased a Blu Advance when I was in the US last year and my main phone died. It works fine at the price point, but data is only Edge in China/HK (I tried it out with Mobile, Unicom, and PCCW).

Option four: my offer to ship you the mifi still stands, but you'd honestly be better off using a phone and tethering.

Okay, darn, now I wish I took you up on your offer for your mifi. I am leaving tomorrow, so I don't think it will get to me in time :(

Now I wish I got started on the business of looking into unlocking my phone earlier. It looks like unlocking (getting the code) will take a few days, if T-mobile reps allow me to do it at all. Because of my timeframe, it looks like I can't do it before I leave for China for a week.

Option 3 looks like a plausible plan if I can find a Blu Advance at a local electronics store tonight.

Otherwise, Option 2 might be the only option left to me if the GSM phone I will have doesn't work. I expect that I will only need the tethering capability, and then use ExpressVPN to access Gmail and other sites on my devices.

Thank you again for all of your help! This has been a learning experience - I'll know better next time.

Greetings from China! Here's an update on the internet situation:

- As soon as I arrived, I got a text message from T-mobile offering the possibility of getting free unlimited web included as part of my global coverage. I have never heard of this before, so as soon as I was able, I got online via my host's slow internet and read up on it.
- I verified that my T-mobile plan was a "Simple Choice" plan, and that China was included as one of the international countries supported with this free unlimited internet.

- Then I ran into a lot of snags: I couldn't connect to supposed free internet. I searched on some forums (in between trying to get answers about internet, I purchased ExpressVPN and got it set up. Google started working for me like a charm. I am connected to Hong Kong 1, but then that was sort of slow, so I switched to Hong Kong 2. No problems so far!)

- Because I couldn't make international calls from my phone (I needed to call +15059983793 to ask about the international roaming), I managed to get connected to G-chat, and called using that.

- The rep walked me through the process of manually connecting to the cell phone towers. On the Samsung Galaxy s5 (Android 4), I had to ensure that data roaming and mobile data is enabled before powering it off and then back on. Then I had to search for Other Mobile Networks, and manually select China Unicom. And then voila, I was online!

It says "3G" on the phone, but the rep tells me it's actually 2G. If I want to buy 3G, there's a 1 week plan that is about $50. Right now, the 2G is working fast enough for my purposes. And considering I didn't need to spend any money on getting mobile internet, I am a really happy camper.

Thank you for everyone who helped me out in this thread!

ETA: There's one problem: the connection might be unstable. So far, it seems the only workable solution to reconnecting to China Unicom is by restarting my phone. So far, this has happened twice in 30 minutes.

You shouldn't need to use a VPN when roaming on Tmobile. In fact, you presumably get better connection speeds without (i.e. China-US is more direct than China-US-HK-US).

Ah yes, I had figured that out via T-mobile forums (and actually came on FT to post that tidbit, but you beat me to it!). Now the issue is that although I did briefly get onto the 2g T-mobile network, it is now "E" or 1g or whatever it is. I guess the area I'm in is a little more remote, as I am in the mountains a little further from the city center. But my laptop is connecting to my host's internet for now, and I'm utilizing ExpressVPN to access everything I need to access.

We can agree that Edge sucks, but it is still 2 notches better than regular 2g (if that even exists any more):

http://telecomtalk.info/difference-b...nd-out/121666/

Ah, thanks for this info!

I have been having trouble even connecting to Edge sometimes. I finally have the VPNExpress app installed on my Samsung Galaxy s5 so that I can use it whenever I connect to free wifi. I was surprised to see that a lot of shops and restaurants offer free wifi.

Been reading about the GFW stopping more VPNs from working, is ExpressVPN still working for Gmail? If so, would appreciate it if someone can refer me. Most likely will need VPN for my computer, smartphone (running off Wi-Fi, no data), and iPad. Thanks.

My latest speed test:

Location Latency [ms] Download Speed [Mbps] Speed Index
================================================== =================================
Hong Kong 2 31 4.7 760.8
Hong Kong 1 31 2.1 339.7
Singapore - CBD 65 1.6 123.1
Malaysia 70 0.4 27.0
Singapore - Jurong 76 1.3 85.4
Japan 84 failed failed
Los Angeles 3 142 1.6 55.3
Las Vegas 148 1.2 39.5
San Francisco 154 1.6 51.4
LA 2 - Best for North China 159 0.6 19.0
Los Angeles 1 159 1.8 57.2
Los Angeles 160 1.7 53.1
Vietnam 164 1.4 42.5
Taiwan 165 1.3 38.7
Thailand 167 1.4 41.3
Los Angeles 4 168 1.4 41.3
San Jose 173 1.3 37.2
Dallas 180 1.4 39.8
UK 1 181 0.9 24.4
Chicago 195 1.1 27.6
Atlanta 197 1.1 28.4
UK - Berkshire 201 1.2 30.7
Seattle 202 1.2 29.3
Washington DC 213 1.0 22.4
New Jersey 214 1.0 24.0
Austria 217 1.1 25.3
New York City 219 1.2 26.9