TradingShenzhen.com is a store our regular readers don’t need to be introduced to. In a few articles, we’ve already mentioned that it’s probably the highest-quality international shop with Chinese goods.
Our purchases from this store are continuing, and we’ve now ordered a pair of hot new Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12 Pro releases. As with almost every one of our orders, we’re adding our experience this time too.
You’ll love Global Priority shipping
TradingShenzhen is probably currently the best international seller where you can buy products from Xiaomi, OnePlus, Vivo, and more. Not only does it offer most of the products as a single source, but it can deliver any product from its catalog to you without any customs charges. And that’s thanks to the Global Priority shipping, which the seller has really handled well.
The shipping fee is higher, but in the end it’s still definitely worth it, because they save you at least 20 % on VAT. Customs paperwork is handled directly by the seller, as well as any other fees related to it. So you pay the item price + postage—and you don’t have to worry about anything else.
Besides that, we’re also constantly impressed by the delivery speed. The seller states delivery in 10-16 business days on its website, but we’ve never waited that long for a package from them. We placed our recent order for Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12 Pro smartphones on 29. December, which was just one day after the new models were announced. That’s why we had to wait a little longer than usual for dispatch, since the goods still weren’t in stock.
The shipment went out on 4. January, when we also received an email with a tracking number. We really appreciate the Global Priority tracking system, because, unlike many others, it shows every single movement of the parcel—so the customer knows exactly where their package is.
Just 12 days later, specifically on January 17, the Slovak Post courier was already calling us to say they were delivering the package to the address. Even some European warehouses from AliExpress don’t offer delivery this fast.
And how much did we pay? Xiaomi 12 in the 8 + 256 GB version came to 697 € and Xiaomi 12 Pro in the 12 + 256 GB version cost 897 €. Since our order included two products at once, the shop offered us discounted shipping for a reasonable 20 €. Current product prices can be found below:
Xiaomi 12 Chinese Version (without B20)
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any extra fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT are handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart only, after you enter the delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any extra fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT are handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart only, after you enter the delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any extra fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT are handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart only, after you enter the delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
Xiaomi 12 Pro Chinese Version (without B20)
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any extra fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT are handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart only, after you enter the delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any extra fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT are handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart only, after you enter the delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any extra fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT are handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart only, after you enter the delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
The seller pays attention to the packaging
In the TradingShenzhen store we mainly find more expensive devices, which is reflected even in the packaging itself. The seller also doesn’t want the goods to arrive damaged in any way, so they use multiple layers of protection.
Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12 Pro arrived packed in a cardboard box that was wrapped in bubble wrap, and then everything was additionally packed into another layer of an envelope. The smartphone boxes arrived completely undamaged. As the seller is used to doing, there’s also a gift in the form of higher-quality adapters for our outlets—and this time we even found a nice Christmas LEGO set in the package.
How do the Chinese versions do in terms of compatibility here?
Since, at the time of writing this article, there were still no global versions of the new flagship smartphones available on the market, we ordered the Chinese versions. This time, however, neither Xiaomi 12 nor Xiaomi 12 Pro support the B20 LTE band, which is perhaps the biggest downside of the Chinese versions.
B20 LTE band (800 MHz) is used by carriers to broadcast the 4G network outside cities (this applies in Slovakia), which means that with these phones you’ll only connect to the 4G network in a city or very close to it. So far, we’ve tested the signal in the center of Trenčín with a SIM card from Telekom.
For comparison, we also took the Chinese version of Xiaomi MIX 4, which supports the B20 LTE band as well. The Xiaomi 12 connected to the 4G network in the city without any problems at all, and the download speeds measured via the Speedtest service were very similar. MIX 4 achieved a result of 195 Mbps, while Xiaomi 12 also reached very solid 123 Mbps.
The smartphone system will be possible to reinstall with a fully localized system from the Miuios.cz developers, or, respectively, the Xiaomi EU ROM. However, at the time of writing, the translation still wasn’t available.
Reinstallation, however, requires experience with unlocking the bootloader and flashing the system via fastboot, so it definitely isn’t for everyone. As usual, over time the seller will certainly add system installation service to the offer as well, available for a fee 25 €.
We’ve already started testing, and soon you’ll find detailed reviews on our site. If you have any questions about the smartphone or the TradingShenzhen store, feel free to ask in the comments.
We also invite you to our Facebook group and be sure to like our sister China Planet page, where we post more similar tips for shopping from China.
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