Meizu M8 captured on video looking smooth, doing multitouch

Oh M8, you've grown up before our eyes. It seems like just yesterday we were looking at your early incarnations and their uncanny similarity to certain other devices. And how could we forget those times we spent together waiting for you at trade shows, and mocking checking out your early hardware? And now look at you, all grown up and caught on video doing your thing. You know what? This actually looks pretty damn nice. Sure, the obvious major iPhone influence is still there, but we have to say, Jack Wong and co. have done a pretty good job of smoothing out this UI -- and we didn't expect to see multitouch working this nicely. Of course, the clip says more than we ever could, so go and wrap yourself in your grandmother's afghan, grab a steaming cup of coffee, head out to the porch of your 19th century farmhouse, and just listen to the wind chimes and smooth sounds of this video as you take a tour of the Meizu M8... after the break.

[Via MP4 Nation Blog]

[idiot @ Nov 20th 2008 10:03AM]

slavery is wrong, my grandmother gave up her afghan long ago

[ethana2 @ Nov 20th 2008 10:26AM]

minor bun engine made benny lava

[chickenator @ Nov 20th 2008 12:17PM]

Someday I'll sell DNA

[crow610 @ Nov 20th 2008 1:04PM]

I see these nuns are gay!

[Don @ Nov 20th 2008 1:44PM]

Wonder which hentai that was?

[Chi @ Nov 20th 2008 2:24PM]

Now poop on them.... OLIVER!!!!!!!

[adam @ Nov 20th 2008 5:02PM]

who put that goat in there?

[PH0ENIX @ Nov 20th 2008 10:09AM]

Video no worky. :-(

[joe23521 @ Nov 20th 2008 10:18AM]

Try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgO1lls1NLE

[PH0ENIX @ Nov 20th 2008 11:34AM]

Thanks!

[Raz @ Nov 20th 2008 10:10AM]

The M8 is actually done and ready, so what you are seeing is pretty much the final product, but Meizu is in a big snag with getting their phone license from the Chinese government, once they get this, the M8 will be hitting store shelve (well in China) and eBay shelves soon after.

[Chasen @ Nov 20th 2008 10:25AM]

Looks pretty good. I will pick one up if I come accross it in a store.

However, I want to see how this thing handles Chinese input.... it can be very slow and cumbersome on the iPhone.

[kadajawi @ Nov 23rd 2008 11:14AM]

@Chasen:
http://www.meizu.com/cn/Taste.html
There you can a demonstration of the phone, if you click on the chat thing you see how chinese characters are entered.

[joe23521 @ Nov 20th 2008 10:15AM]

Pretty sweet looking. I wonder what browsing looks like on there.

[Neejay @ Nov 20th 2008 10:19AM]

I'm impressed. Very smooth and snappy interface. Any price estimates?

[joe23521 @ Nov 20th 2008 10:22AM]

Not cheap. Last I heard is that the 8GB model will go for 2580 RMB, which is around $370 and going up as we speak.

[Raz @ Nov 20th 2008 10:23AM]

$300-$400 for 8GB / $500 for 16GB according to the last time they announced what the price maybe, but could be cheaper now due to the crappier economy in China

[cesium @ Nov 20th 2008 1:52PM]

I'm guessing that's the unlocked price, in which case it's a pretty good deal

[qings @ Nov 20th 2008 10:17AM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgO1lls1NLE

[ethana2 @ Nov 20th 2008 10:27AM]

I like the music in the video.. but I don't know if I should.

[Armin @ Nov 20th 2008 10:40AM]

I had the exact same feeling :S
ironically i used my iphone to grab the song name
its called 'Gotta Have you - The Weepies'

[mrchet @ Nov 20th 2008 10:43AM]

Weepies...kinda funny to see it in a video from China.

good rainy day album.

[Brandon L @ Nov 20th 2008 11:11AM]

I kinda prefer how it looked when it had the iPhone GUI.

[Traps @ Nov 20th 2008 11:15AM]

Nice to see engadget not bashing the M8 this time (for the first time)... I bet you folks also want to get one of those in your hands now! :P

Just a little FYI: this isn't really an official video, but a leaked one which even made JW throw the threat of taking legal action. The official review is supposed to arrive next Tuesday.

[Kali4 @ Nov 20th 2008 11:45AM]

Request for clarification: is the name of the phone pronounced "emm-eight" or "mate?"

BTW I think the phone would be so worth it if it can copy/paste and take video.

[ilh @ Nov 20th 2008 12:14PM]

em eight...following from M3 and M6.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 20th 2008 12:43PM]

So it's a BMW?

[jaalin @ Nov 20th 2008 12:05PM]

fumoffu!

[Shinigami @ Nov 20th 2008 12:17PM]

Soul mate! lol

[Shinigami @ Nov 20th 2008 12:16PM]

Looks good. Will there be a worldwide release?

FMP???

[H @ Nov 20th 2008 12:21PM]

GO WINDOWS CE 6.0!

[iPhone @ Nov 20th 2008 12:44PM]

prefer how it looked when it had the iPhone GUI.
http://www.mac-apple.net/

[Richard @ Nov 20th 2008 12:45PM]

Hey, did you guys notice that this thing runs windows mobile apps? I saw TCPMP and S2P in the file browser, I thought that it was only based on windows CE. Anyway I think this is pretty cool because the guys over at XDA-developers will surely rip all the cool stuff out of this phone and put it on my Diamond (yay)

[silver @ Nov 20th 2008 1:38PM]

Anybody know if this has been confirmed? If this is true, and we can run winmo apps on it then woohoo! It also seems to be the fastest of the win based devices out there.

I wonder about its browsing experience...

Someone mentioned it being $370.. if this is also true and its without a contract its very cheap!

[larryryan0824 @ Nov 20th 2008 2:37PM]

Wow that wierd, it looks just like the iphone... like they just copied every idea and just changed it a little...

[TheCow5 @ Nov 20th 2008 12:51PM]

I've been waiting for this phone for come time now, I only hope it comes out before january.
as Ive been waiting I desided to get the w99i MiPhone (iPhone clone) it works great but has three flaws.

1) the cap for the phone that protects the plug for the data cable and wired headphone is backwards, the cap alwasy gets in the way and one day it will break off.

2) It can only support GB MicroSD Cards

3) its price. the phone does work great with WinMo 6.0, WiFi, it very nice but its 325$ price tag was a bit too much for the lac of support for larget Memory cards and no 3G (which I haev no need for)

4) its support, it comes with a Properity Data cable which you only get on of and it it goes you are up river without a paddle. I've been looking for one for over three weeks now and chinagadget.com never reply to your email after they send you the product.

[Sean @ Nov 20th 2008 2:19PM]

First off, you listed 4 flaws not three
Second. If the price is true (under 400 dollars), in no way is this a bad deal. You get similar specs to that of the iphone with multitouch, wifi, and even stereo bluetooth. Yea it doesnt have the greatest support, but find me a phone cheaper that has all of these features. iphone unlocked is almost a grand, so for 2.5x less, i would not just critique the device without giving some positives first.

[adam @ Nov 20th 2008 12:53PM]

how is this vaporwear still making news? it's basically a copy of a phone that came out a year and a half ago, and it's probably going to take at least that long for this to ever be released... i don't understand.

[kadajawi @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:01AM]

It is done and ready for release, they are already mass producing the thing, just waiting for the license. So, nope, not vaporware.

[jake @ Nov 20th 2008 1:04PM]

It may be a blatant clone of the iPhone, but it's actually pretty nice for a clone. Probably will be on ebay soon.

[Guruboy @ Nov 20th 2008 1:19PM]

Hee hee hee I can just hear the iPhone owners quaking in their chairs. You can only call it "just another clone" so many times. I'm fine with an 8GB model because hello? SHDC? More space on an M8 is simply cheaper than on an iPhone.

[Johan S @ Nov 20th 2008 1:29PM]

Wow, certainly looks like blatant cloning .. but I'd wait for Apple's lawyers to make that claim .. since I know that I've seen a lot of the individual iPhone features on other far less popular phones (for example the accelerometer landscape/potrait detection in myOrigo)-- we cant be sure that it's all infringement we're seeing. That said ,, they seem to have done a good copy job (of questionable ethics), .. I would like to see the web browser though. Wonder which web browser is going to be in it Fennec or webkit based something or maybe Opera (unlikely since they'd have to pay)?

[simin_chang @ Nov 23rd 2008 8:13PM]

Exactly! Meizu has paid Opera for the web browser. And it runs smoothly~

[Ryan @ Nov 20th 2008 1:34PM]

Work on sprint? Please god? Pleaaaase?

[PH0ENIX @ Nov 20th 2008 1:58PM]

LOL...no. Sprint will only allow Sprint branded phones on their network, and this likely uses a SIM chip, and probably runs on GSM.

[haX0r @ Nov 20th 2008 1:51PM]

I think that they did a really decent job since the first incarnation of the phone. Running WiMo that smooth will defiantly help it sell all over the world.Anybody got an idea on what networks/frequencies this thing will run on?

[harmx @ Nov 20th 2008 2:13PM]

This looks really promising. Multiple codec support, decent UI and bloody copy/ paste. Hope this has proper Bluetooth and voice dialing!!

I love my iPhone3G, but it ain't a 'smartphone'.

This should do well!

[xECK29x @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:18AM]

Yea it does run WinCE apps, I hope Meizu asked permission to use both those apps. Especially S2P that is made by an XDA Developer and is not available for commercial use!

[chickenator @ Nov 20th 2008 2:38PM]

lol at the songs collection on the phone. he didnt bother to edit the ID3 tag (one of the song still shows the website address). most probably it's not even legit.

[Jeff @ Nov 20th 2008 3:22PM]

As with all music in China...heck you can even go to Baidu (famous Chinese search engine) and they have MP3 search right on the front page.