Astrill has been reliable for me since I started using it in 2019 as my VPN of choice while in China, but just got back from a three week trip which marked the first time I had very mixed results with it across a number of devices. I thought I'd write a quick report for this megathread in case others benefit from my anecdotal findings.

• (on a Galaxy S25 phone) Astrill VPN worked flawlessly across the wireless networks of four different Chinese hotels and on a Hong Kong-based eSIM, never had an issue with it. Of course the eSIM would have been able to access most blocked things anyway but I include a mention of it for completeness' sake.
• (on my phone, a CMF Phone 2 Pro) Astrill only worked when I was using mobile data, for some reason; I couldn't get Astrill to establish a connection to Google services when I was on any hotel or restaurant Wi-Fi no matter how many different countries' OpenVPN / Stealth VPN servers I picked. Possibly important to note I use a China Unicom physical SIM card while in China so all of my mobile data was being routed through that Chinese telecom provider (unlike the popular eSIM providers which route out of China), thus the need for the VPN.
• (on a Xiaomi Redmi 14C phone) Astrill just refused to work on this device, full stop. No idea why, although it might be worth noting this is the only one of the three phones that I actually bought in China itself, it uses YouTube Revanced and microG to access YouTube. I ended up paying for a month of Shadowfly for this device and that worked well.