Besides that very early
prototype handset, Meizu also brought along a rough (and we mean rough) engineering board and display to show off the M8 mini One's UI and feature set. It was lacking Bluetooth, camera, or WiFi so we weren't able to see those features of the Opera browser which the mini One will one day happily tout. Still, we had high hopes of seeing just how talented Meizu's software engineers are at
recreating the iPhone's lauded user experience. Well, from the demo we saw, they've come pretty close but they've got some serious house cleaning to do before the August launch. Rubber banding scroll bars, finger flick gestures, big inviting icons... it's all there. Unfortunately, the wheels fell off when set to motion. Meizu claims the issues seen during the demo are due to the display -- a stock, touchscreen and sensor with plastic screen (the final product will be glass) which was quickly cobbled together for the purposes of the CeBIT demonstration. Regardless, finger taps were more often than not greeted with cold, stilted silence. Be sure to check out the video to hear how Meizu's device is different than the iPhone. It's a bit long and sometimes painful, but if you hang in there long enough you'll see (and hear)
Engadget get the first public phone call from a Meizu M8 mini One... prototype, thingy.
posted March 4th 2008 9:22AM
What a crap
Apple should do a commercial where the appledude says "Hi I'm a mac" and an identical clone saying "and I'm a Meizu". And when the appledude asks "what's going on?" on which point a group of chinese engineers runs out to program a response to the clone :)
Yes, I'm tired!
It's really quite disgusting how these Chinese firms operate. IP is PROPERTY, and this is outright theft. The Chinese government turns a blind eye to this, as long as the theft is from foreign firms. But I'll bet you don't see a single knock-off "Beijing 2008" item produced anywhere in China this summer.
i know this is still like a year from release bye the prototypes but no way they have the balls to release it looking like that, the 'skin' is just to grab attention until its final release. one other thing, they really are taking there time skinning wince arent they. It may look a bit like iphone interface but it isnt going to work like it, have the eventual ecosystem of accesories and software or even the syncing ease, you can copy the iphone but you cant make winCE into osx.
mmmm
Typical CHINESE:
when caught red-handed cheating: deny all allegations; what smells like shit, looks like shit, tastes like shit, let's deny that it's in fact not shit but a juicy watermelon.
It's a straight knock-off ok. After seeing this horrid prototype demonstration - the UI is absolutely horrible comparing it to the iphone's super smooth UI interface, you can tell it's another typical chinese knock-off that doesn't work as intended. Sure it can make calls; at the expense of giving you 10x the radiation effects of other phones!
LAME!
"tastes like shit"?
Um, how would you know?
Come on.. think about all the hard work they put into this. Apple is a multi billion firm with tens and hundreds of engineers working on the iPhone. MeiZu has only a fraction of Apple's resources.
I think they should have kept this thing hidden from video cameras. And to say its not like the iPhone because it uses Windows CE? Huh? And why would they maybe change the UI as he said, when they've been showing the same clone UI since the beginning.
Shame
Ok this is a prototype and an iphone rip-off, so what? By the time this is released if, of course, it happens, I mean it can be a PR and nothing more, apple will release next generation of iphone, it isn’t that competitive but still this is something. More phones better future for customers, such crappy things also drives innovation forward, when you do something new first you copy you idols, right?, if you succeed, next thing you do is trying to excel them, so I wouldn’t blame this one prototype for anything, will even encourage it for trying. I meant if they give us one innovation over iphone, at least one, something creative I would give a thumb up, wouldn’t buy it however.
I don't think the interface is slow because it's a prototype. It's a GUI over windows mobile. I don't own an iPhone...I don't really need one (although the iPod touch is looking tasty)..anyway...I've always owned windows mobile devices because of work. But out of almost all the PDA and smartphone OS's, windows mobile is among the slowest, to my eye.
If someone made a windows mobile device that had the responsiveness of the iPhone..I'd jump right on that.
Of course it is slow. And it won't change much. You just told the reason yourself: GUI over Windows.
Ever used a HTC Touch? Same thing. Slow, slow, crappy ...
It's just another so-so low budget phone and that is what you'll get: a cheap chinese phone.
Hate tobreak it to you: quality costs a little more. The iPhone is not expensive. Especially if you see crap like this.
No more M8 news please ... it's just another sack of rice falling over in China.
This thing navigates very roughly prototype or not. How can they deny point blank that this isnt a copy of the iphone its nearly an identicle copy of the UI.
Very ignorant in deed.
This thing navigates very roughly prototype or not. How can they deny point blank that this isnt a copy of the iphone its nearly an identicle copy of the UI.
Very ignorant in deed.
It's slower than an iPhone, uglier than an iPhone, not as useful as an iPhone, but OMG IT'S NOT AN APPLE PRODUCT I WANT ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do actually own an iPhone.
Not as useful? So your iPhone can be extended with GPS, right? And it has a 720x480 screen, right? Oh, no... no, it doesn't.
Yes, this is slow at the moment, and yes, it comes a bit late, but Nokia etc. haven't released their iPhone clones either, right? And without so many people working on hacking the iPhone, it would be just another thing like the Prada Phone etc., pretty much locked down.
Meizu has copied interface and idea wise, but the underlying stuff is their own work, and they tried to improve on the iPhone (better screen for example... don't you think that that way higher resolution might have an impact on performance?) and there should be no doubt at all that the sound quality will be superior to the iPhone.
This is rediculous. The idea of a cheaper iPhone is great, but by the time this thing actually launches in August the iphone 2 will deffinately have come oyt and the m8 along with the first gen ipgine will be old news with everyone wanting an iphone 2. If rhis was already out or comming out in the next month or so it might be worth it. But an august launch is rediculous.
sorry for the spelling, i am typing this on my itouch. P.s. The on screen keyboard on the iphon/itouch isnt as great as people make it out to be. - flame me apple fanboys, flame me.
Another log for this fire, look at Android prototypes. A lot smoother than this. Oh, and Android is not a rip-off reverse engineering of the iPhone.
Honestly, if the Meizu ever comes out this year and the iPhone is still at Edge speed then I'll probably buy a Meizu just as a novelty item but I honestly see this phone heading in the same direction that the BenQ P50 phone headed.
Did Meizu ever give a hint as to why it's taking so long with this? There's a shit load of iPhone clones now. Some really crappy and some pretty good ones. But the king of iPhone clones is no where near complete. Why?
I don't know but this video sort of reminds me of a Frankenstein movie: "IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!!!!"
Hm... because they don't just quickly hack together a clone, but pay attention that it actually works? Those clones are horrible, this is a (very) iPhone inspired device that wants to be better, and that takes some effort. But they have done it before with their M3 and M6, which were better than iPods.
Wow... you would have thought with all that hardware they could have got a better frame rate out of the UI.... some of the transitions almost ground to a halt!
It's no surprise they didn't show off any browsing, trying to scroll a web page would have killed this, it was struggling enough with the menus...
Now it could drastically change before release, it could be the windows underpinnings or it could be the prototype hardware but it sure looks to me like they're really struggling with this one!
Why should we care again ?
Sent from my iPhone
Because we'll see Meizu's reaction to Apple's army of err... crazy, rabid lawyers.
It appears as if Meizu intends to develop an UI on their own/hire some company to do so... when they have the cash to do so.
Also, the speed issue should be because they use the 6400 for the prototype, and not the 6410 Samsung CPU/GPU as the final version is supposed to use.
Here is the source:
http://www.meizume.com/minione-m8/5661-j-wong-3-5-update-new.html
They say that there was a problem with the touchscreen, so they had to change to a different manufacturer. However, the prototype was built for the old touchscreen, and some modifications were neccessary. There was no space for that in the prototype, but at least they could modify the mainboard.
So otherwise the M8 prototype should work?
Who gives a shit if it's a rip-off? It's a gadget and a prototype at that. You know what you're getting. I don't see women getting their panties in a knot when they know they're buying knock-off Prada or D&G. It's dishonest but fuck, I REALLY don't care. Comapanies don't deserve loyalty to the degree where you take it as a personal affront if someone pulls a PolyStation or M8. As a consumer you really have no reason to moan about this "prototype, thingy." Real cute there, "Thingy." Slap yourself, honestly.
Umm, id say it needs some work, im sure just like all other chinese nock-offs that this one will be great!!! :P
Umm, id say it needs some work, im sure just like all other chinese nock-offs that this one will be great!!! :P
Hi Engadget,
This MEIZU(...[whatever]...) M8 mini 1 looks like a cheap ripoff, It is like, The keyboard is too small, It has no good feature, IT is the iPhone, I belive that the CEO of MEIZU was taken aback by the fact that iPhone wont release in china because chinatel(...[Am I right?]...) called off the talks. It will not sell here in India because we already have iPhone(...[Unlocked]...)here, Everyone has a 1.1.3 OTB unlocked using the ZiPhone.
This cheap rip-off will not sell even in the US or the UK or Germany as Apple will file a lawsuit for violating the patents(...[I am sure of this]...).This phone sucks.
It's gone by now: Police closed it down due to patent violations
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/104558
Windows mobile has not changed nor expanded in years, it has great capabilities if there was enough memory to work with them, and even if you can expand memory it only helps in storage and not RAM in function. The iphone is a mini mini laptop waiting for expansion in function with software and eventually hardware, unfortunately they released early and everyone was stuck using beta phones. The touch is terrible, the tilt is terrible, and we will see what Sony is gonna do. nokia is great if it only sold in the US and blackberry is probably in the best position to enhance what the user experience will be like once they go touchscreen. Palm is gone, and unless microsoft reinvents their phone os which the should and can, to work more with their semi defunct OS vista, the mac os is fairly strong and will allow more of a relationship of portability of the most important features of the leopard os making it an enjoyable experience.