Battery: I did not use ANY of my extended battery. I flew Continental and there are plugs, ordinary US plugs, under the chair. Bring a multiplet adapter, you are good for the whole transpacific flight. You do know which seats to book though, http://www.continental.com/web/en-US...ity/power.aspx.

Wifi:
Go with Boingomobile, $7.99 per month, no contract, all over HK and part of China, Shanghai and Beijing. PCCW in HK is Boingomobile.
Recently HK just installed free wifi on ALL government buildings an public library.

In china, wifi also started to get common. Place I stay, private home, not hotel, has several free wifi leads.

Alternative is to get a sim card that allows inet access. They are measured by MB dl or hrs online. Either way, they are pretty cheap when compared to USA or Atnt. Make sure it is a local sim card, otherwise it can get outrage expensive.

I got a simcard for my cellphone and BT to my nokia to get online.
With my N800/internet access/HAVA, I was able to watch US TV in china, got a glimse of the Duke/Michigan NCAA basketball game!

BTW, there are more Nokia shops than McDonald. Sony or Erricasson is as rare as an embassy.

bun

Havent tripped to China - but have been many other places (EU, India) and your comments and suggestions are quite sound.

Only addition I would suggest is to find an older/support USB LAN dongle in the event you can connect to a wire with no wifi around.

This saved me at a Marriott LHR, where wifi was down the night I passed through...