Keepin' it real fake, CXL: Cottage MP3 player apes iPod nano 4G a year in advance

Why, this is downright preposterous! How dare the copyright-ignoring, astonishingly uncreative minds of those at Miao copy Apple's latest iPod nano design a full year in advance? They should be implausibly embarrassed by churning out a so-called Cottage MP3 player in 2007, all while the brains at Cupertino sat and pondered how to make its tiny little PMP that much better. This, people, is an outrage. An outrage!

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2008 10:36AM]

This article sucks.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2008 10:57AM]

This comment sucks.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2008 11:36AM]

Those crappy Chinese fonts and sparkling icons hurt my eyes!
I've actually used one of these, and I can't understand why can't the manufacturer take some time to create a simple, functional and elegant design for the firmware that these devices use? If they went through all the loops to create an mp3 player that works the way it should, why not go all the way?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2008 3:27PM]

If someone hired you to make the interface of a crap mp3 player, how much time and effort and care would you put into the design of it? Especially if someone said they'd pay you a $10.00 flat fee for the designs.

[Professional Amature Posted Sep 12th 2008 11:47AM]

Whew...I'm glad to see Apple is not infallible and has to resort to copying their award winning industrial designs from a knockoff company. It's not like this basic design was used in a previous iPod Nano before, like maybe the 2G version.

I know Apple copies just as much as it innovates but let's be honest here. The design is 90% like the second generation Nano (or maybe Apple haters can't remember that far back) with a few modifications. A little thinner, a little more tapered, curved glass screen, and a few updates under the hood but essentially it's a second generation Nano.

[TabajaraLabs Posted Sep 13th 2008 1:25AM]

Old news...These "MP4" (this is how they are called in Brazil) are way more than a year old! So bad they don't have a clickwheel, and cannot have memoy extended. But they are durable and play well

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2008 4:21PM]

They look like a copy of the old Apple iPod Nano to me...

[BeniRose Posted Sep 12th 2008 1:56PM]

These actually look more like the 2G, but with longer screens. I saw some (very young) kid with one of these once, and he kept referring to it as his iPod so that people would think he was cool, but in reality his parent had bought him a fake iPod. I wasn't sure if he knew or not that it wasn't a real iPod. I felt so bad for him.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2008 2:18PM]

I got myself one from China, believe me although the form factor and aesthetic looks same but it isn't. Also the UI is very primitive.
On the other hand it has the Audio recording, FM, and Video playback which werent available in Nano till sometime back. It doesnt have the click wheel feature, you have to manually press the buttons as many times. And the battery just take years to charge and drains in 2-3 hrs.

Inspite of all this I got that cheap $20 - 2GB capacity, that was 1 year back. Wasnt a bad deal though.

[MrAffrox Posted Sep 12th 2008 6:31PM]

I'm not impressed Apple...

[kLid Posted Sep 13th 2008 2:53PM]

hahahha thts so hilarious! this is actually old! i got this exact MP4 player (including the same interface) some 2 years back lol
but yah its crappy compared 2 the real thing - i had no job nd i was desperate lol
i might as well get me a 4G iPOd nano now T_T

(btw the radio is already bust in the ,p4 player) nd o0 ya the comapny tht made my mp4 player is called ROCO (its actually owned by the bookstore company in saudi arabi - Jarir)

peace out

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2008 12:47AM]

I'm I the only person that thinks it looks more like a 2nd gen? it has a slightly more rectangular screen, sure, but it doesn't have any of the gloss or the roundedness of the new one.

[RAMz Posted Sep 13th 2008 9:49AM]

I think they both look kind of weird.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2008 12:17PM]

umm, isnt this just a 2nd gen ipod nano? i dont see the big bevel on these badboys. nice find tho.....?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 14th 2008 6:02AM]

You mean the ones that look exactly like the launched-in-2006 2G nanos--right down to the color scheme--but stuck on a slightly larger screen?

Yes, how DARE Apple copy themselves in one similar, trivial, completely expected way after someone else copied them in that way!

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 14th 2008 9:59AM]

Are you kidding me, Engadget? You've gone right down in my estimation...

These are exact replicas of the older generation iPod nano, you know, the ones before the nano Fatties? Apple may have gone back to a similar-ish design but... but... I don't know what to say.

Bad reporter!

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 14th 2008 10:01AM]

In fact, even the colours are identical!

I think a public apology is in order here from the author :)

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 15th 2008 2:33AM]

Hmm, I see Engadget is trying to appease the apple haters who throw tantrums in the comments of every apple-related post...