Well, would you look at that. If not for the gaudy packaging, $69.99 price tag and blatant Oasis Media branding, we'd swear the Playr was a
T-Mobile Shadow (or HTC's
P3300, we guess). Yep, this knockoff does a fairly decent job of mirroring its inspirer, sports 2GB of storage and a miniSD expansion slot, comes with 35 free eMUSIC downloads and includes a built-in media player for good measure. Interestingly, we get the feeling that this thing won't actually send or receive calls, but if you're quick, no one will even notice.
[Thanks, Rick]
Update: Turns out this thing is actually the MachSpeed Oasis Video Player, and is readily available on
Amazon (among other places). Still, it could stand some originality in the design department. [Thanks, Rob!]
posted Nov 29th 2007 at 12:50PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jared @ Nov 29th 2007 1:17PM
Does anything not come with 35 free eMusic downloads?
nate @ Nov 29th 2007 6:33PM
Yea, I have a card here with only 25 downloads. I feel discriminated against.
Dan Parmelee @ Nov 29th 2007 1:33PM
These cheap knockoff stories are boring me. Isn't there anything more interesting happening in the world?
spyder91 @ Nov 29th 2007 10:43PM
No.
Randomness @ Nov 29th 2007 1:36PM
Awesome! Just picked one up from Fry's ( http://shop4.outpost.com/product/5346418 ) My friend's with their iPhones are going to be super jealous!
Richard Lai @ Nov 29th 2007 4:14PM
But it's not a phone...
Brad @ Nov 29th 2007 1:50PM
I could have sworn that was a Fry's price tag...
Chris W @ Nov 29th 2007 8:51PM
That is a Fry's price tag.
Dustin Leiblein @ Nov 29th 2007 1:53PM
That's a fake of the HTC P3300. Look's nothing like the Shadow to me.
http://www.europe.htc.com/products/htcp3300.html
Karl Viklund @ Nov 29th 2007 2:26PM
This is TOTALLY REAL!!!
rob @ Nov 29th 2007 3:10PM
You Engadget writers are total idiots!
This is not a knock off of anything. It's a MachSpeed Oasis Video player and has been available on Amazon for months. MachSpeed is an American company.
insertAlias @ Nov 29th 2007 8:50PM
Sure, because it's only other countries that rip designs off.....
David @ Nov 29th 2007 3:26PM
Yeah.. definately the HTC P3300.. My dad has one and it looks exactly like that.
js @ Nov 29th 2007 3:33PM
google: Palm Tungsten T
Who's ripping off who now?
Wil @ Nov 30th 2007 5:35PM
This MP3/MP4 player has been out for a while now. I saw that at my local computer store months ago before the release of the Shadow.
Austin @ Nov 29th 2007 5:19PM
I agree this sort of article is a bit stale. Particularly since it's not so much a knock off, as it is a slightly similarly looking, differently purposed device that was actually released first.
I'm kinda suprised it wasn't compared to some Apple product: look, it's got a large screen and a circular button at the bottom, it must be an iPhone fake.
aron @ Nov 29th 2007 5:50PM
That's a total rip off of the P3300. Just because it doesn't do the same function it's not a rip off? So all those KIRF 'mp4 players' of the iphone that don't have a phone function aren't kirfs? What a joke.
Austin @ Nov 29th 2007 6:48PM
For one thing, the OP said it looked like the Shadow, not the P3300. But I didn't say just cause it has a different function it isn't a design rip off, I said if it only looks slightly similar and has a different function, it's probly not a rip off.
Besides, it sure looks the P3300 is ripping Palm if anything.
Dan Parmelee @ Nov 29th 2007 5:35PM
In the end there's only so many ways you can make a PDA/smartphone look, so things will inevitably start looking the same.
Jon @ Nov 29th 2007 5:58PM
That is the HTC Artemis (P3300 variant). Come on Engadget. Do your homework.
Merovingian @ Dec 1st 2007 7:34AM
Oh come on now Engadget !! We've been selling this at CompUSA for months now, and i means months, as in up to 4 months, way before the Shadow came out. Go here http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=cat3&product_code=347722 . The 1
Geez, this mp3/video player came out before the Shadow, geez!!!
The 1GB version is here http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=SEARCH&Ntt=onyx&N=0&Dx=mode+matchall&Nty=1&D=onyx&Ntk=All&product_code=345298
Rob @ Nov 29th 2007 11:12PM
That has been at Fry's for at least months...
Jon @ Nov 30th 2007 9:09AM
Doesn't matter if it has been sold for months now. The design is still a direct copy of the HTC Artemis (P3300 variant) which came out a year ago. So yeah it is still a keepin' it real fake, but not on a Shadow.
rigg419 @ Jan 18th 2008 9:11PM
Yeah, when I sent this in to engadget, I wasn't as familiar with the P3300 as I was with the Shadow. "Oasis Media Playr" was written on FRY's PLU sticker, and that sticker covers most of the Oasis logo. With no other product name visible, I just figured "Playr" was the actual name. I guess it's actually just either a typo on FRY's part, or they ran out of characters.
Now that I've seen the Artemis, I'd agree it looks more like that than the Shadow, but I think that just points to the shadow as a smartphone evolution/variant of the 3300 design. Either way, it's still a ho-hum media player encased in a rip-off of an HTC cellphone/PDA design.