Yes, folks -- things are about to get really real. We have managed, through a series of delicate negotiations, to get our hands on an honest-to-goodness Meizu
M8 -- heretofore the stuff of pure legend. At first glance, the build quality of the phone is actually pretty decent -- it's mostly plastic, but everything seems to snap together firmly. The battery (which is removable, naturally) is quite large, though we haven't had a chance to test its life in any significant way. Of course, the real showpiece here is the software -- which admittedly owes its entire existence to the iPhone. We've found that it's quite snappy, and the styling and functionality of the UI is really kind of impressive (though this did spend a long time in the oven). Still, the phone's
KIRF roots are clear -- you can judge for yourself in the gallery below.
Thanks to the good folks at MP4 Nation for the hookup!
posted Mar 27th 2009 1:33PM
Everytime I hear "Meizu", I want to say "Gesundheit" :/
Welcome to another MP4 Nation dot net player review!...
Really this phone has to offer some crazy stuff to be chosen over an iPhone. I mean the app store alone. And it has a smaller screen. Nowadays if you don't have a large application library forget about it.
Aww... No App Store to Buy I-Fart and I-Beer on your Meizu M8... Come on people how many pointless crap-apps are on the app store... I think Blackberry, Palm and others are learning through Apples mistakes on the app Store Idea... How many Apps can you put on a IPhone before it crashes 10 times a day?... Cause the Touch does it all the time!
Sure I know Apples making bank on the App's... But seriously, At what Cost?
Come on... I hate Apple, but this should be absolutely illegal. If you got rid of the Meizu logo, this would be an exact copy of the iPhone (minus the originality).
Although it has obvious roots in the iPhone I don't think we should really be punishing companies like Meizu who take a product and attempt to improve it instead of just releasing a half assed product and riding on the wake of anothers' success.
Besides you can't own the intellectual rights to a black rectangle with a screen in it - as shown by the LG Prada. And if you look at the software on this thing - again it obviously has roots in the iPhone but Meizu has made an effort to improve the iPhone OS rather then just copying it directly.
Oh whatever, every phone with a touch screen looks like an i-phone. Get over it. It's called competition and it drives innovation.
" as shown by the LG Prada"
Well you have to admit, that this is more of an iPhone copy than the iPhone is a copy of the LG Prada. I have the iPhone, Prada and Touch HD, and software wise, the iPhone comes out on top out of all three of them. But I have been looking at the new Prada, as the keyboard looks nice, but the software still hasn't convinced me.
I agree with scabby. I dont know whats up with these replys saying it has "roots" in the iphone. This is a straight up 100% iphone rip off, upon first glance i thought this was the "Keeping it real Fake" article. Remove the M and replace it with an iphone symbol and 90% of people wouldnt be able to tell them apart by simply looking at it.
Gnormie, yes you can own the rights to a black rectangle with a screen. Its called patents.
This doesnt look similar to and iphone. It looks EXACTLY like an iphone, down to the shape, button placement, speaker wholes, and even the silver border.
Yes, I can't believe this is making it to the states. It does look exactly like the iPhone.
As regards the Prada/Touch HD argument, com'on, you know what I mean. We're not talking about the "idea" of a touchscreen-only phone, we're talking about the exact same design.
It doesn't help that the UI also looks the iPhone's.
Sincerely,
A devout PC
The thing that I disapprove of is the blatant theft of aesthetics. It's hard to make a touchscreen phone look anything other than a slab, and sorry for Apple(-lovers), LG did get there first with the "touchscreen slab" look. But if you look at the iPhone and the 'Prada' phone, there's little mistaking the two. The aesthetics set the two apart, along w/ the interface.
To me, this is like grabbing a Ferrari (Chevy, more like it), taking the badge off of it, and putting your own on it. Just because you took the time to buy an angle-grinder and get good w/ it...
I'm not a legal expert, but as someone who owns a business, this makes me cringe.
@ Gnormie:
Meizu tries to "innovate"? That's laughable... So is everyone who *reallY8 believes this is nothing more than a cheap ripoff.
Why does Engadget give so much publicity to something that so blatantly infringes on others' IP? Counterfeiters and rip-off artists are absolute anathema to technology R&D, because they deprive the truly innovative companies of the revenue that fuels further R&D and that move technology forward. 'Tis shameful.
@Yamagushi
"black rectangle with a screen" is too general to be able to file for a patent. If it was filed and approved, HP/Compaq, HTC etc... will be suing Apple for their iPhone long before they can sue anyone. iPhone will be at the very bottom of the list before they can sue.
Multi-Touch is good idea though, not sure if it ever gotten approved or not.
"As regards the Prada/Touch HD argument, com'on, you know what I mean. We're not talking about the "idea" of a touchscreen-only phone, we're talking about the exact same design."
The thing is that the iPhone, Prada and Touch HD really don't look similar at all.
Where can I get one from?
I couldn't find it on mp4nation, but Here you go http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.20665
warning- be careful. There are different versions of the phone out there... that is why the owner of MP4nation is holding off on selling them until a proper version is released that can work well in America/ the rest of the world.
I wish they'd taken more pics of the OS and less of the build quality. It looks nice, though.
what's funny about it is that while it's a copy of the iPhone OS, it's built on Windows CE 6, so they beat winmo to being first to use winCE and beat microsoft at making an os to impress engadget
I don't understand. There are so many iPhone haters but yet... every other phone is trying to catch up to it.
Whatever.
-72 days til they announce the new iPhone
Nobody is so stupid as to hate a phone dude ; what free minded people find repellent is the idea of a company that pretends to have absolute control on the platform, the programs , the apps, etc. of a gadget they produce even after it has been sold to a private, particularly if through manouvred hype and and viral ads pretends (and often manages) to convince a sizable number of ( misinformed ) consumers that the inferior products it sells are the state of the art and the cutting edge of technology and keep a straight face too.
But while the commercial tactics of Apple are quite unsavoury to people who like to have control of their choices, what is often more difficoult to stand for these indipendent minded folks , are the rants of all those misinformed, uniform and quite silly masses that insist (sadly often in good faith) to repeat the mantras of their conventional wisdom without realizing ,(or maby too scared to admit even to themselves) that their sorry ass has been taken together with their dollars.
Now if only there was a good source for the rest of us. I want one.
That looks sort of like the LG KE850 that Apple copied when they made their iphonepodtouch. j/k
iPhone is hardly a ripoff of the Prada (LGKE850 )... They were released withing 6-7 months of each other and the iPhone was under development for a long time so...
That's different.
why isn't this included in the weekly "Keepin' It Real Fake" series? this is an iphone clone, and they even went as far as saying it got the software ideas from the iphone as well. wtf?!
It's cool I guess, but I do prefer the real deal.
How do you know which you prefer? have you actually tried this phone or even held it in your hand?
@Wicker24
It all depends on what you want, of course, but it's fair to say that this phone lacks GPS and for some (myself included) that's a big deal. I don't know exactly why Swimatm prefers the iPhone but you don't necessarily need to actually use the Meizu to know that it is or is not for you.
@Kelmon
I do agree with you to a point, but all I was looking at was swim prefers the real deal (IPhone) which I also own and more than likely would prefer aswell, but could not possibly make that distinction until seeing them side by side. Just did't seem like a phone options/OS argument.
You shouldnt, many of the shortcomings and blatant failures of the originar Apple product seem to have been corrected and fixed in this thing.
I think it's silly to blame Meizu for trying to produce an iPhone that actually does what it should.
the Fake-Pod. It's not cool, non-American Companies stealing american companies ideas....and you wonder why the economy is in a recession...
Because chinese-made products are REALLY the cause of our recession...
Yes and outsourcing our jobs too. Thanks to the likes of IBM: "Technology services giant is in the process of shifting a large number of jobs to lower-cost regions, such as India."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/25/AR2009032502626.html?wprss=rss_technology
THEY TOOK OUR JERBSSSSSSS
You do know the iPod, and many Apple products, are made in China, right?
Maybe if Apple had their products made in facilities here in the US, they wouldn't be as easy to copy... IP would be easier to enforce...
Why are all the good comments low ranked? Some serious T-R-A-S-H is lurking about.
I agree Dax. When everybody's value system aligns with these pieces of trash that believe it's ok to wontonly skirt laws and copy others' work, then innovation will decline because the profit motive will be diminished, if not destroyed for the companies that do the hard work in the first place. Copygadget.com is available, Engadget might want to go ahead and register that name for when they're forced to change business models.
Uhh, what do you mean non-American Companies are stealing American ideas? Japan & Korea had touch screen products wayyyyy before we did!
How many other capacitance based touchscreen phones can you name? How many cellphones and PDAs prior to the iPhone used your finger, not a stylus, as the main input device? How many focused on rich media and internet open standards?
There is absolutely nothing in the iPhone that anyone else couldn't have done, yet despite that it wasn't done until the iPhone did it and this newcomer to the cellphone industry is now taking the most profitable segment, the smartphone market, and turning it into the mediaphone market that everyone is now playing catch up to compete with. With Meizu at one end making a device that can only be sold in countries with lax laws on copyrights and trademark. Yet despite the blatant copying from the bottom up it still taken them over 2 years since the iPhone was first demoed and they first sent out vaporware photoshopped images of what there device was going to look like in "6 months".
The more iPhone clones the better.
It's the only way to keep Apple on their toes.
Seriously, what is with all the stupid comments being highly ranked? Rip-offs don't drive innovation. Serious competitors like HTC, Palm, and Blackberry do that already. Chinese reverse-engineering just siphons off money from real R&D, whether it's Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, American or Finnish.
+1 funke for having some common sense!!
@funke
HTC IS a Chinese company. They are based in Taiwan which is part of China.
I thought Taiwan was independent of the PRC therefore not China.
@xconan
Well maybe you should leave that thinking cap at home cos it isn't doing much for you
Tails, you're an idiot. Taiwan is NOT China. It has never been ruled by the communist government, and hopefully never will. If it had, can you imagine how far behind they'd be right now? Not to mention all of the historical artifacts and art that were moved to Taiwan would've been destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.
When I referred to Chinese reverse-engineering, I meant specifically the shady outfits that do this stuff, NOT every Chinese engineering company. Asus, Foxconn, Garmin, Nvidia and all of the other companies that are based in Taiwan call themselves "Taiwanese", and not "Chinese", so your point is moot anyway.
I agree, Pingles!
I though you said "I want Pringles" must be time for a snack.
test
Man...I actually kind of want to play with one of these!
I'm an "anything but Apple" kind of guy. It's be interesting to see how well this performs.
Oh the irony. You're an "anything but Apple guy" and you want to play with the iPhone clone. Makes you wonder how much happier you'd be if you stopped being such an anti-Apple bigot and just got an iPhone, huh?
Look, not everyone is into Apple, alright?
@Zak
There are actually a lot of reasons an 'anything but Apple' person would prefer this phone over the iPhone the first being audio/video format support, better screen, (almost certainly) better sound quality.
Simply put it's not going to outsell the iPhone but it carries a lot of the features that people who are put off buying the iPhone desire.
I'm an "Anything but Apple" guy, because I don't like the proprietary nature behind Apple. The iPhone is a REALLY sexy unit. But of course, I have to use the Apple software to do anything with it. So I avoid it.
Proprietary? Really? That's why you don't like Apple?
/facepalm
In that case I hope you don't use Windows, because Windows is a 100% proprietary OS. IRONY. And really, if you're going to take that attitude about Apple then in order to not be a raging hypocrite, you can't use any software that isn't 100% open source.
You want to know the real kicker here? The Meizu M8 runs - you guessed it - Windows. Windows CE 6.0, to be exact, which is a completely, 100% proprietary OS. You sure you don't want to come up with a better reason for not using Apple products? Because right now you look like a steaming pile of hypocrisy.
The iphone os is much more sleak and polished than winmobile but I don't think you know what the word proprietary means. Winmob can be licensed to work on almost any device, iphone os cannot - it only runs on apples on property (the iphone/ipod touch). While neither windows mobile or iphone os is open source if you are looking at which one is more 'open' then windows mobile wins out. Windows CE can also be completely customized by a company and be distributed; you cannot do this to the iphone os; at most you can put out an application (if apple accepts it) that behaves within a sandbox and is severely limited to running when the user specfiically allows it (no background apps).
You can also develop applications for winmobile and put them up for anyone to download without having to go through the PROPRIETARY app store that apple has. Apples system is completely closed box; while that has some benefits it also means there is going to be alot more restrictions in place for developers and for consumers. The reason you see alot of nonsense apps on apples store is because developers DO NOT want to risk months/years of development time to be denied to distribute on the app store by Apple based on their whim/competition/being under control by att.
Apples whole culture has been closed box since the beginning. Microsoft finally is opening up to allow others to integrate into their systems.
yeah, but i can do whatever i want with vista, any customization i could imagine. same thing goes for Windows Mobile, while the iPhone software is completely locked down.
*jailbreak**
cough cough
You guys clearly don't get it. Mike is complaining about having to use Apple software because it's proprietary... and yet he can install that software in Windows. Can't be too proprietary then, huh? Speaking of proprietary, how come you can't sync a Zune to a Mac? Oh right. because Zunes are completely proprietary and only work with one piece of software that ONLY runs in Windows.
I have hundreds more examples if you want them, but if you think about it I'm sure you'll figure it out. You use the words "open" and "Microsoft" together, which makes me laugh. I don't think you know what the word "open" means, because if you did you surely wouldn't be associating it with anything Microsoft has ever done.
Your complaints about the app store are baseless, as the app store is currently allowing about 96% of all apps submitted through. That percentage isn't going to scare any developers away.
In any case, Mike's complaint is about Apple's system being proprietary, but if he was paying attention at all, he would realize that anything by Microsoft is ALSO proprietary. That's why this is funny. Mike is just an anti-Apple bigot, he doesn't have any kind of good reason for not using Apple products. He just avoids them because they come from Apple, which is the dumbest possible reason for avoiding them.
@Zac,
First, take a prozac and calm down. Second, there's proprietary and then there's proprietary.
The iPhone's development cycle is tightly controlled and locked down. You have to pay for a PKI cert to be allowed to publish, and then only apps Apple approves. And you have to renew every year. The only way to distribute apps to non-jailbroken phones is through the AppStore and the ONLY development tool is XCode and only in one language ObjC - a language not used by anyone BUT Apple.
That's pretty proprietary.
Windows Mobile, on the other hand, doesn't require a membership fee, doesn't require Microsoft's approval, doestn't require a PKI certificate. You can sell your apps through anyone - or even just on your own. It doesn't need a special app store - it can be given away without anyone but you involved, and while Visual Studio is the best development environment for it - there are others like Borland's Delphi.Net environment - and you can use any language you want.
Oh.. and if you want to look at the source? It's included in Platform Builder.. even the free trial version.
That's still proprietary - but a hell of a lot less than Apple and the iPhone.
@Zak
*Standing ovation*
I couldn't have said that any better. I haven't found anyone who owns an Apple product and will tell people that it is a piece of s***. People who talk down to Apple are just those who haven't tried it out. But who knows maybe all these PC fanboys will be happy when Windows 7 comes out, as great as Vista turned out to be I can't wait to see what they can think of (try to steal from Apple) next.
Ugh Zak and Jacob.
Got off Apple's pole and wipe yourself already, you're making a mess on the floor.
@ Zak
While both OS's are proprietary in the absolute sense of the word, please show me how you can install any app you want on the iPhone (without having to jump through hoops to "jailbreak" the device first) without having to acquire the app from Apple, and ONLY Apple. There is a reason it's called "jailbreak." Because until you do, you're in a jail, locked in and locked down, and very restricted on what you can and can't do with your device, to the point that you don't really "own" your device, you're more like "permanently renting." In that sense, yes, WinCE/WinMobile is a much more open platform than the iPhone for the simple fact that you can install, alter, etc. whatever you please, from wherever you please, without having to jump through special hoops to gain the privilege. For quite a few people who would have otherwise jumped on an iPhone immediately, Apple is just a little too 1984 Big Brother-ish for them. People judge in absolutes when they can't sit back and think critically, it's the easiest position to take and doesn't require a lot of thought.
As for the look/feel of the device, how is anyone astonished that companies would be trying to mimic the look/feel of the device? When people are falling all over themselves to compare everything to how the iPhone looks and every company that's trying to make a device that's distinctive and polished in it's own look is met with a chorus of "meh, it's not the iPhone;" what in the world do you think manufacturers are going to try to gravitate towards? If you say, "well, they need to innovate more," think again. There are quite a few devices which are released that look great and have their own distinctive flair. While there are some people who applaud them for putting effort into making something nice on their own, there are many, many more who sit there and knock them for not making the device more like an iPhone....
When faced with a response like that, it's no surprise what the result will be.
Are you also an "everything but vagina" guy?
@ Zak: obviously, propriety means 'our way or the highway'. In the case of the iPhone, unless you jailbreak it, you ONLY have the option of installing applications that the phone manufacturer allows, and their decisions as to what to allow or not are quite arbitrary at times.
No other smart phone OS is this restrictive. Sure the App Store is convenient, as long as your app is accepted. Regardless of ones opinion of Apple in general, this limitation DOES suck and is very much proprietary.
Me too, Mike. It looks sweet! I'd love to have one, flaunting it in hella people's faces with their iphones, hehe
I admit to wondering how that flaunting will go and why you think that anyone would possibly care. Is there really anything here that is that exciting?
Seriously? That's like flaunting *insert keepin' it real fake device name* to the owner of a *insert real device name*.
but no FM...?
test
What are you guys talking about....people copying iphone? Japan, Korea and China had these ideas WAY before the US did. In case you havent noticed.....the US is WAY behind almost every other country when it comes to consumer technology. Yes, the iphone is a very good product.....but its not like he invented touchscreen technology within phones. All they did was make it more popular with consumers in the US. but it was already popular in Asia
Can you say big fat freakin' lawsuit from Apple? I sure can.
Apple: I'm suing because Meziu made a touch screen phone that has the same shape as ours.
Judge: Do you have a patent on touch screen phones with this shape?
Apple: No.
Judge: Get out.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/30/the-iphone-patent-steven-p-jobs-inventor/
If they use the multi-touch interface as seen in the link above Apple might have a case... I'm just sayin'.
Look_Around_You: I'm posting this fictitious conversation between a judge and Apple so that people can experience an imaginary court scene.
Everybody else: Thanks, Look_Around_You we could have never imagined this without you!
Look_Around_You: Good thing most judges are smarter than you are and can see when a product is a clear and obvious ripoff of another product. Shape, size, dimensions, colors, design, everything. Hell, everybody here knows it's a ripoff of the iPhone except you, apparently.
@ Heath:
Look_Around_You is an idiot if the ONLY similarity he can see between both device's HW and SW is the shape.
Unless Meizu tries to sell it in a "real" country with "real laws" then Apple has no recourse.
@Josh and Zak:
Just talking is cheap. If you guys are so confident that you can win in court, why not sue Meizu on behalf of Apple?
llren: Talking is cheap. If you're so confident the M8 is not a ripoff, despite every possible type of evidence to the contrary, then prove it. Prove that it doesn't look exactly like an iPhone. Should be easy for you, right?
I'm curious post a video pls
I've had mine for over a month now. The Inteface is a bit inconsistent but workable. Bluetooth works you can tansfer and do everything you expect it to do. The screen is really nice resolution is quite high. There's good codec support. Plays MP4 AVI MPG FLV RM FLAC files. There is a community for apps but much smaller than the iphones and most are in chinese.
Sound quality is great. Microsoft activesync to sync contact and calender info works okay.
Reception is nice. Mine is quadband and sound quality is much better than my old SE W550i
Too bad the "offical" version doesn't have wifi though. Mine does but even then the browser still needs work. It's nowhere near as responsive as iphone's safari.
Unforunately for most people, this phone is focused for the chinese market. Most of the menus and apps are unfortunately in chinese. I understand most of the menu options no problem but I hate simplified chinese.
If you are not into tweeking and customizing registry info this phone isn't for you.
I would buy one in a heart beat, just for the removable battery capability. Which is something Apple should of done. I hope the one in June has one. My nephew takes care of his mom, my sister and has all of her personal information in the iPhone because when calling doctors and all, they always ask what's her date of birth, social security, basically everything to prove she the right person. The iPhone had a issue with the battery, that require it to be handed over to an Apple store tech for a couple of days. In that week my sister identity was stolen and used. If the battery was removable, my nephew could of change it himself, the way it's been from the beginning of time of the cell phone.
But Apple needs to make money off us, to do what we been doing ourself, and thats to change our F@#kin battery. Over 80% of identity theft accrues internally in companies by disgruntle employees. But Apple don't give a F@#K....
uh... if you don't like the non-removable battery... don't buy the F@#kin phone :)
Is Meizu still in existence? Nearly two years ago I was reading about this model handset. I thought they gave up trying to produce it. What's the point, now? Apple and the iPhone has moved on to higher realms. Does this M8 runs thousands of apps or have some grand OS? Unlikely. I guess people would buy it because it's cheap and looks like an iPhone. Meizu once had a one-in-a-million chance with selling this handset in quantity a year or so back, but now it's like one-in-twenty-million.
Now it's not even hardware that's important. It's all about the software. Meizu has arrived a bit too late on the scene. If you don't like iPhones then buy a Palm Pre, instead.
The M8 is around 500$ so it's definitely not cheap so STFU and GBTW.
the 8GB M8 is 395... still not cheap, actually quite the great price when you look at the iPhones unsubsidized cost. Perfect option for a budget minded person like myself, as i'm on a pay as you go, and would still like a fashion-centric phone such as this.
Its good to see options, and considering Meizus track record for Superior products compared to its competitors, its quite lucrative.
I think it is fair to say that plenty of people counted the iPhone out before its launch and look what happened there, so it's perfectly possible that the M8 will do well enough and recoup the investment that has been made. Whether it will have great software will depend on how well people take to it but I wouldn't be surprised to see it have a great market in China.
With respect to the Pre, I refuse to get drawn into the hype about it until it actually becomes a reality, something that the M8 apparently has managed to do (I admit that I would have bet the other way), and is actually proven to be good.
Actually yes it has got 1000 of apps ( it runs an altered version of one of the windows mobile OS's) hells this baby can run Diablo 2.
I SMELL LAWSUIT !!!!!
they should make the OS open-source...
Not going to happen. It runs on wince 6.
The OS in WinMo 6.0 All you see there is a very very elaborate skin. Also is this thing really only dual band? I mean come on! Just freaking let it run quad band GSM/EDGE and Tri band HSPA for goodness sake! (Oh and while your at it Meizu throw in some EVDO-Rev. A support just for kicks).
Windows mobile 6 isn't running on the M8 it's windows CE 6. Win mobile is derived from win CE. I know the test ver which i have is quad band even though they advertised dual band but i can't say for sure for the offical release ver.
My friend bought similar knock off for about 100$, pretty painful to use.
---------------------------------
http://www.tasktutorial.com
oh boy! i think i'm more outraged by the packaging than anything else! the sad thing is, is that i'm sure the design team wanted to change up something, and their overlords just said "iPhone CLONE NOW!"
UM, YOU GUYS DONT KNOW NOTHING!
this is based on windows CE!
though the icons are iphonish.
technically the first winmo phone with a capacitive screen :)
Breaking News:
Apple patents iRectangle, iCircle, and iSquare, and is out to sue rectangle, circle, and square.
I really prefer this phone to the Iphone. I've tried my friend's Iphones and I wasn't really impressed due to the lack of such basic functions as video recording and MMS it has taken them till the 3rd generation of the OS to finally implement MMS and still no word on video. A user has to jailbreak the phone to truly get the most out of it. This phone has everything that one needs to have a real phone. And Meizu is working around the clock on updating the firmware and it just keep getting better. The Iphone may be nice but I Love my M8 :D
Does it have copy and paste?
yes :)