[ATU/M/ISK]

I agree, I've found this to be the case as well. I've never owned a cheap Chinese phone, but I found a great tutorial on making your own phone out of a Raspberry PI I think you'd find interesting.

PiPhone Tutorial

I've always found it easier to have an old flip-phone for calls and an old Android for connecting to Hot Spots and using as a media player if I need to.