I'm wondering whether people think it's a mistake to buy the Chinese version of the Vivo X70 Pro+.
I'm an English-speaker living in Italy, and the Chinese version is the only one available; I'd be buying it from Wonda. Compatibility with Italian networks doesn't look to be an issue. My concerns are the usual: bloatware, Chinese interface elements, Jovi instead of Hello Google, etc.
A couple of specific things: will this affect translation across apps (which is generally done via Google Translate)? I need to be able to translate stuff into Italian and Japanese, and from those languages into English.
And I'll need both Nova Launcher and WhatsApp. I do have a family member living in China, so if I have to sign up for things with a local phone number, that won't be an issue. Still, I worry I'm setting myself up for a major headache.
I buy my X70 Pro+ from Giztop eshop. No problems, the phone arrived in Ireland in about two weeks. No Custom payes. But I paid a lot, more than 900 €. Normally I always order from Tradingshenzen, but at that time they only had the most expensive version in stock. Today they are all available and 8 + 256 costs a great 827 €. With duty-free transport.
When unpacked from the box, it was already in the Google Play Store phone and the default English. Of course, there is bloatware (which mobile manufacturer doesn't?). Some Vivo applications are going to uninstall. The problem with Vivo apps is that they are 99% of the content is Chinese and I haven't found a way to change that. Actually, I'm not even interested, they just are there and I don't use them.
Origin OS settings are more difficult to understand. It took me a few days / hours to figure out how to allow various permissions and notifications for Google Play apps. The only problem still persists and that is that the phone does not notify me of received FB Messenger messages. In the settings, you can even click on the options "Default App Settings" and change Google applications to make calls for those from Vivo, etc. It's just still an Android OS. and the superstructure is inspired by MIUI and Oxygen OS for me. Google Assistant works when you press the microphone icon on the Google Taskbar, unfortunately it is written "currently unavailable on this device" for voice activation settings.
You don't need a Chinese phone number. You can create an account on the Vivo website via email and then log in to your phone with a password