Located very close to the railway station, the Holiday Inn Zhabei was convenient, inexpensive and was a very high quality hotel for the money. The complimentary breakfast was nice, but usually VERY crowded. It was not truly "western" as advertised, but certainly had enough to sustain you until lunch.
The staff was VERY friendly and helpful and many spoke English.
While the closeness to the railway station/subway station was nice, it can be deceiving. Getting to certain lines on the subway required a LOT of walking, and if you came out of the wrong exit, it was easy to get disoriented. Our first night we wandered around trying to get to our hotel for 20 minutes. We could see it, but there were walls and barriers preventing us from getting to it. We finally went back down in the subway, came out a different exit and found our way.
For roughly the same price as many Chinese hotels, this was a very welcome upgrade.

The rooms were really nice, bug and comfortable beds. The location wasn't the best and was quite dirty. Food was also really bad, but if rating only on the room, it was worth the price. Expect the walk o take taxi/train if you want to get anywhere.

We were booked into this hotel by someone who lives in Shanghai and thought it was a good location. Personally I believe there are much better locations then this one to spend a couple of nights in Shanghai. The area around the Shanghai Railway station is dirty to say the least. There is really nothing to do in this area and unless you are just spending the night in the hotel, there are no opportunities to walk in the neighborhood and discover new sites and sounds. The rooms have the appearance at first glance that they are up to standard, but it did not take long to discover that items that needed repair were not tended to. As others mentioned the breakfast was pretty poor. Although I never stay at a hotel for the breakfast. Carpet on the floor of the room was stained and had a dirty look to it. The price was reasonable so I suppose one should not complain, as I have stayed in worse.