I figure Skritter users on the mainland might be able to help me with this - I'm looking to buy an ipad before I go back to China, and I obviously want to be able to skritter on it and use wifi.

So should I go 3g? I've heard that I can buy a 3g simcard in China and install that onto a 3g, but the 4g also just came out.

If anyone has any information on it I'd be extremely grateful!

I'm not sure if the Chinese mobile networks support 4G yet. Even for 3G, only China Unicom supports Apple products like the iPad and iPhone. If you put a China Mobile SIM card in an iPad I'm pretty sure it will only run on EDGE which predates 3G and is significantly slower.

If by "4G" you mean LTE, this is not yet available in China. In addition to China Unicom, China Telecom also now offers iPhone, but I don't know what the two carriers are doing with tablets. In terms of connection speed, buying a "4G" iPad overseas and taking it to China is probably not worth it. The other distinction is that the latest iPad has higher screen resolution, but for Skritter I don't think this matters.

You don't need 3g or 4g to use the Skritter app. It works offline and just syncs once you are connected to wifi. Personally I'm happy with a wifi-only iPad for my Chinese needs, but perhaps your requirements are different.

Buddy of mine said that 3G is more expensive in China than in Australia.

Personally I skritter using an iPad 2 without 3G, I just use wifi to connect to skritter, and if I'm going out somewhere I make sure to add a bunch of words by wifi before I go.

One time I was locked out of an apartment, but I could still get wifi by sitting against the wall by the door. That was cool.

3G's not that expensive. I have a plan with Unicom for 240 voice minutes and 400 MB data for 126 yuan per month. I can't speak for Australia, but that's probably half what an equivalent plan would cost in the US.

I sold a 3G 64GB iPad 1 and only had to pay a little more for a 32GB WiFi iPad 1.

I don't need the space now that iTunes Match keeps my music in the cloud, and can tether to my phone for the odd times I need a data connection away from home/work.

It was totally worth doing to get the better screen - The iPad 1 & 2 screen looks pretty awful and pixelly next to an iPhone 4. See the thread just below this one for comparison screenshots of Skritter on different iPads.