China Unicom is the second largest Chinese mobile operator and it has finally revealed details regarding the launch date of the iPhone 3G and 3GS models: October 30. The handsets will be offered with a 2 year contract agreement, but they’ll also be available without commitment.

While contract prices are mere rumours for now, we know that the 8GB iPhone 3G will be available for about $732, without contract, while the 16GB 3GS will go for $861 and the 32GB 3GS will be sold for $1025. Do these price tags scare you? Look up the total price paid by customers buying the iPhone on AT&T with a decent plan… now that’s huge!

China Unicom will be selling the iPhone via its online store, but also in various locations, like the carrier’s business halls and Apple’s Chinese stores.

[via Unwired View]

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China Unicom will finally start shipping iPhones next month. There hasn’t been any official announcement yet but this info emerged from multiple sales channels and regional offices.

It seems that the launch date is October 15th, this fact being revealed by China Business Time. We are talking about two types of handsets: the 8GB version and the 16GB one. The Chinese public will be able to purchase the 8GB iPhone for 1999 yuan ($293) while the 16GB model’s price will be 2999 yuan ($439). Both prices are available with a 2-year agreement of at least 186 yuan ($27) per month.

If all of these are true and we have no reason to think otherwise, China Unicom will have no problem with selling millions of iPhones. We are talking here about a country with about 690 million mobile users that is more than Western Europe and USA combined. The Chinese black market currently offers about 1.5 millions iPhones that can be purchased for about $680, so it can’t face China Unicom’s offer.

[via UnwiredView]

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China Unicom will be shipping 5 million Apple devices no sooner than September this year. International Business Time revealed the details of the deal regarding this heavy supply of handsets.

We are talking about standard WCDMA iPhones, bought from Apple for 10 billion Yuan (1.463 billion dollars), resulting in a price of 2,000 Yuan ($292) per unit. China Unicom thinks of selling the 8GB device for 2,400 Yuan ($351) and the 16GB one for 4800 Yuan ($702) although they didn’t make a clear agreement with Apple in this sense.

Apparently iPhone 3GS won’t accompany the iPhone 3G on the Chinese market, since its 8GB version wasn’t announced yet. There are however rumors about a future release of iPhone 3GS 16GB units, but nothing is known for sure.

It seems that iPhones will be available for the Chinese in the Carrefour locations and in China Unicom’s retail outlets.

[via Unwired View]

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China Unicom can now prepare the launch of iPhone 3G as SRRC ( State Radio Regulatory Commission – the Chinese equivalent for FCC) approved it. The table beneath from the SRRC’s website proves this.

We can clearly see the model’s internal number A1324, the handset’s GSM / WCDMA capabilities, the manufacturer “Apple Inc” and the approval date of  May 7th, 2009. It must be said that the certificate is available for 5 years.

The cell phone has Bluetooth support but unfortunately no Wi-Fi, like Nokia 5800i. Also notice that the device comes with 16GB of internal memory, as you can see etched on the back.

[via EngadgedMobile]

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China Unicom will bring on the market Nokia 5800i in the near future, as FCC aproved it. It seems this handset will get to China faster then iPhone.

Apparently  the device is very similar to the popular 5800 XpressMusic, having almost identical specs. The handset can operate in quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dual band WCDMA 900/2100MHz, a fact that made the phone perfectly suitable for China Unicom. Of course the label is in Chinese.

Unfortunately Wi-Fi is not on the handset feature  list. It’s rumored that the cellphone will have a capacitive touch-screen, although is unlikely.

[via BGR]

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