So I was very proud of myself, having got a new (i think) HT Sensation XE for a decent price as well as having finally sorted out a contract with China Unicom. I went to try and buy something from the Android Market but it seems everything is listed as incompatible, and I think it's something to do wit China rather than the phone itself.

As you can tell, I'm not very technical Any advice please? Many thanks

you can't use android market in china. plug in another sim from a country that can purchase paid apps. it doesn't have to be a working sim with service, so if you have a sim lying around from another country, try it and see if it works. you'll obviously need to use the market on wifi if you do this.

I got my android market to work, though there are some file corruption issues. Alternatively you can access the online market site via your computer and send the apps you want to your phone. The only app I had trouble getting was the Google Maps app (got youtube and facebook no problem). To get the google maps app I had to go to a secondary app indexing site, download it to my computer and then send it to my phone via bluetooth. But, incompatible means incompatible. It is because of the phone you have not because of China.

JonnyYoung wrote:So I was very proud of myself, having got a new (i think) HT Sensation XE for a decent price as well as having finally sorted out a contract with China Unicom. I went to try and buy something from the Android Market but it seems everything is listed as incompatible, and I think it's something to do wit China rather than the phone itself.

As you can tell, I'm not very technical Any advice please? Many thanks

I suggest to install this android app will help you visit some blcok site smoothly

app: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.yesvpn.cn

Which paid apps are you after?
You can always use Mobilism (google "Mobilism and whatever app name) as it has a large database (or should i say discussion threads) with links to apps
Download the respective .apk file.
Copy the .apk over to your phone using USB or Bluetooth.
Install the .apk on your phone by selecting it (Make sure that you've enabled the option to install non-Market apps in your Settings)

Hope thats not too technical for you.

OK thank you for all the advice. Googling Mobilism now, so thanks for that. Also trying to dig out my old UK sim.. I know it's around here somewhere... Thanks again...

One other thing... what's your views on the safety of the apk files that you find via Mobilism? Are they likely to be full of viruses? Noob question, apols...

KopyKatKiller wrote:I got my android market to work, though there are some file corruption issues. Alternatively you can access the online market site via your computer and send the apps you want to your phone. The only app I had trouble getting was the Google Maps app (got youtube and facebook no problem). To get the google maps app I had to go to a secondary app indexing site, download it to my computer and then send it to my phone via bluetooth. But, incompatible means incompatible. It is because of the phone you have not because of China.

you can't buy apps in china. you can't do it even if you go to the market via browser if your phone is registered to a chinese network. the OP is asking about buying apps, not download free apps.

android security is not great and there's zero malware protection even from marketplace apps. i personally wouldn't download apps from anywhere other than the market. it's just a few bucks and if you're not willing to spend it on an app, it's probably not worth having. that said, if you don't use your phone for any work related business, have no sensitive personal information, don't do banking or share passwords from accounts you use on your phone, and have nothing to lose, it's probably ok most of the time.

Just checked the market out on my computer, only free apps available. When did that happen? In the past I could buy apps...

Just giving options to the OP that there are free apps available and work equally as well. If you want to pay, then more power to you. Not everyone has handy access to an international SIM and its that extra inconvenience just to switch SIMs every time to get one measly app.

My Android has been running almost 95% apks that have originated from Mobilism and I haven't run into viruses. I've got to be honest though, there are certain apps that have not worked 100% simply because they are not meant for the kind/build of phones I use (I tend to use Androids with a sliding keyboard).

I don't want to get too technical but Android is Linux based (as opposed to Windows). The target segment of malware and viruses for Windows is definitely greater than for Linux. There is also a sandbox for which apps run separate to the operating system.
Malware and viruses are rare for the Android platform but that's not to say they don't exist. Just go easy on the paranoia, if you ask me. If you still live in 1984 (brilliant book btw), then get an anti-virus app.

KopyKatKiller wrote:Just checked the market out on my computer, only free apps available. When did that happen? In the padty I could buy apps...

China happened.

^ http://gizmodo.com/5880268/five-million ... are-attack

http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-securit ... se-malware

if you are willing to install apps of unknown provenance esp on a rooted phone, you're asking for trouble IMO.

mochabene wrote:

KopyKatKiller wrote:Just checked the market out on my computer, only free apps available. When did that happen? In the past I could buy apps...

China happened.

Same goes for the android market on my phone. China sucks most of the time!

root your phone

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/root-andro ... neclick-2/


install market enabler

https://market.android.com/details?id=c ... rch_result


enjoy all the apps

^ does it work for you because i have two different market enabler apps and they both used to work but now i'm back to swapping sims to purchase apps.

KopyKatKiller wrote:Same goes for the android market on my phone. China sucks most of the time!

i'm not sure it's a china restriction. there are many countries where paid apps aren't available.

lowlight wrote:^ does it work for you because i have two different market enabler apps and they both used to work but now i'm back to swapping sims to purchase apps.

yes it still works using the market enabler from the link above

^ what's weird is i can actually see the paid apps and try to purchase, but the purchase never goes through using the market enabler. this happens on two different phones. sim swapping works though.

Yes, the Market is definitely blocked, only the free apps are now available. I used my UK SIM as per the advice which works like a dream, so that's good enough for me for now. Thanks all for the advice.. my new phone is now good to go..

Just a quick update - and this probably of no interest to anyone but myself - but having sorted out a few apps from the market, I then left the phone downloading some podcasts and synching my music from my PC. I came back a little while later and it suddenly had 7 or 8 new, Chinese apps on it. They seemed to be all security or messaging apps (QQ and others). The level of permissions that they had was frightnening and went into a minor panic.

I think they came pre-installed with the phone and activate themselves after a certain period of time, I'm pretty sure I didn't download them. I've heard about phones in China coming pre-loaded with these sorts of things and being quite malicious - but either way, i didn't want these apps on my phone so had to find a way to remove them. A normal uninstaller wouldn't do the job, so after reading a litlle I realised that I needed root access.

As of yesterday morning I didn't even really understand what rooting a phone meant. I looked into it, and it seems that whilst there are some nice packaged up rooting solutions, they're not for the Sensation XE. When I found the instructions to do it manually they were several pages long.

Long story short, and six hours later at about midnight, I had successfully rooted it! I lived in fear of bricking it all the way through (the phone that is) but I did it in the end, and finally was able to remove all the hideous junk that was on the phone... just thought I'd share

^^I bought a new computer here and all those china crap apps exe files were in a hidden folder on the desk top.

Can anyone else get Market Enabler to work?? My phone is successfully rooted and I can see full price apps on the Market but it won't let me buy them. Someone above suggested that they have the same problem but I'd like to know if anyone knows a way around this? It's slightly annoying having to swap sims...and I'm paranoid about buying or downloading from anywhere other than the Market....

it used to work. my guess is google's blocked it.

btw, i personally wouldn't run any os that comes pre-installed in china. the first thing i do is reinstall my laptop with my own windows license (not a big deal since i need to get rid of the chinese language version anyway). i also wouldn't buy a phone that has a rom from a chinese telco. even american telcos install crap and potential spyware on phones, but at least you have some theoretical legal recourse if they're actually found to be spying on you. no such protection in china. so i either buy phones and computers in hk or reinstall over it.

https://market.android.com/details?id=c ... rch_result

I'm with lowlight; the new Market 3.4.4 has probably additional checks besides Location and SIM code. They've probably added an extra IP security check to undermine the Enabler. Doesn't seem to be a universal workaround at the moment (everyone is reporting the same fault with paid apps), other than to test old versions of Enablers or Markets even.

For now, if you want to go the extra safe and legitimate route, I would say it would have to be the pain-staking SIM switching (I don't get how that works since your IP is still a local Chinese IP ...wtf )

i don't think it's an ip check. even if i run all my data through a tunnel, market enabler still doesn't work. probably the way it was spoofing the sim carrier is no longer sufficient. this could be due to the new market or it could be due to later versions of android. if i ever put my device back to froyo i can see if market enabler still works with it.