Data-only SIM for tablet to use on a China trip

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#322990 13-Oct-2025 15:19

Hey all,

Trying to plan a trip to China for some students and give them the option to contact home. They will not all have phones.

I was thinking a 4g capable basic tablet for each, with an NZ Sim card on roaming data (to get around the blocked sites in China).

The trip is around 7-8 days and the SIMs won't need to be used after that.

There would need to be enough data on them for messaging apps and perhaps the odd video call.

Any ideas?

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#3424673 13-Oct-2025 15:24

Check out the NZ carriers websites and what roaming plans / packs that work for you - Getting a local SIM could be an issue due to the great firewall of China

SpartanVXL

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#3424681 13-Oct-2025 15:56

Nz sims are expensive, if esim capable then getting a singapore or HK provider esim will likely be cheaper. The latter is less restricted except tiktok.

Bear in mind that some places in china rely on services (wechat/alipay) which may not work on roaming connection that goes outside the country, especially if you turn off location services. HK esim does work in that regard.

Local sim is a lot cheaper for data (think 50-80GB for $20nzd or less?) but has the obvious downside of being within the firewall, you also need to use passport to register it for each student.

kiwi_64

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#3424739 14-Oct-2025 09:07

I was over there a couple of months ago.

My wife (who did not have an eSim capable phone) was able to buy a SIM on arrival at the airport while I was awaiting baggage collection. The counter staff also installed and configured a VPN for her, and all worked fine. Not as snappy internet response as my eSim connection but worked fine, and inexpensive

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#3424741 14-Oct-2025 09:27

Thanks for the responses. Are there Chinese SIMs you can buy here in NZ prior to going? We want it setup before leaving ideally.

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#3424754 14-Oct-2025 09:56

lookout:

Thanks for the responses. Are there Chinese SIMs you can buy here in NZ prior to going? We want it setup before leaving ideally.

Check out Trademe

SpartanVXL

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#3424755 14-Oct-2025 09:57

Not that I know of, you can buy them at the airport on landing. There are a lot of booths and staff to help and as said before you need to register with ID (passport). As for the provided VPN, it is probably something to ease foreign tourists coming in as VPN’s… are not really allowed. If you roam you don’t need to worry about VPN but if you get a local sim I would personally use one from a provider somewhere else before you go.

esim sellers like nomad, airalo etc. will tell you who provides the roaming.

Or you could go with the option of a pocket wifi with a lot of data and have everyone connect to it via hotspot.

I take it you already know, but are each student going to rely on someone else to make payments etc.? While cash is still accepted (you won’t always get change back) majority of places there use digital payments via phone apps. The students without a phone will have to be chaperoned everywhere as they will encounter not being able to pay for things or get into places if they don’t have a paper ticket kiosk. Pretty much everything there is digital now.

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#3424771 14-Oct-2025 10:43

If your phone support eSim

10days, 100GB per day, just NZD 39.40. also, it eSim support Facebook, Google, Whatsapp in China.

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#3424853 14-Oct-2025 12:47

SpartanVXL:

I take it you already know, but are each student going to rely on someone else to make payments etc.? While cash is still accepted (you won’t always get change back) majority of places there use digital payments via phone apps. The students without a phone will have to be chaperoned everywhere as they will encounter not being able to pay for things or get into places if they don’t have a paper ticket kiosk. Pretty much everything there is digital now.

Thanks for that info! The trip is still in planning stages but I'll definitely pass on those points. I am just the IT guy advising what would work device-wise. I think I will suggest phones or tablets with LTE capability and be prepared to sort SIM cards upon arrival.

SpartanVXL

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#3425175 15-Oct-2025 15:41

lookout:

SpartanVXL:

I take it you already know, but are each student going to rely on someone else to make payments etc.? While cash is still accepted (you won’t always get change back) majority of places there use digital payments via phone apps. The students without a phone will have to be chaperoned everywhere as they will encounter not being able to pay for things or get into places if they don’t have a paper ticket kiosk. Pretty much everything there is digital now.

Thanks for that info! The trip is still in planning stages but I'll definitely pass on those points. I am just the IT guy advising what would work device-wise. I think I will suggest phones or tablets with LTE capability and be prepared to sort SIM cards upon arrival.

I suggest whoever is organising to find some recent travel guides or have at least a few chinese nationals with them. Things get a lot easier with someone in the system so to speak, language aside. Alipay has decent translation but is not as widely accepted as Wechat is. Pretty much everything there is a QR code in the mega apps., restaurant menus, museum tickets, payments and so on.

Please remember that anything Google will not be able to call home. I don’t know how much this affects android devices that rely on google services e.g. auth. Roaming is a guarantee that you can reach outside. VPN is not guaranteed if using a local service i.e. the firewall can and will block things day to day if it decides to.