It's pretty typical for serial
KIRFers to make minor changes to the names of the brands they're ripping -- take
Sany Ericssan, for example -- but we've never really known why. "Go big or go home" is the KIRF mantra we prefer to live by, and if you're going to gank a phone's design, by golly, do it with gusto. Give it 110 percent. In your heart, after all, that NOKLA's really a Nokia -- it's what you feel deep inside that really matters, and no well-staffed, well-funded Finnish legal team can tell you otherwise. That's why we've got to hand it to this particular model, simply called "Copy Nokia
N900" in a painfully honest, accurate admission of its true
raison d'être. Strangely, though, they've missed a few basic points: the Copy Nokia N900 trades the genuine article's landscape QWERTY slider for a dual slide configuration in the same vein as the
N85 and
N95, for example, and Maemo 5 has gone missing -- instead, you're treated to a frighteningly accurate S60 5th Edition knockoff. If you can tolerate the dismal VGA cam, GPRS data, and QVGA screen, you'll be pleased to discover that the phone features an analog (yes, analog) TV tuner and an accelerometer with "support" for flick control, which you can watch in action on video after the break -- looks super fun and usable, doesn't it?
posted Sep 29th 2009 5:23AM
KIRFers gonna takeover the world, it's just a matter of when...
Are there any KIRFs actually worth getting? I mean if I hopped on a plane to China and went in search of the Uber mobile phone what would I get?
honestly does anyone buy Nokia phones anymore? Well at least in the U.S. I don't think i've seen one in years.
Yes, yes they do.
I think you'll find Nokia still outsells Appple.
i just went to the at&t and and verizon stores and they basically only sell old dumb phones and flips that are nokias. don't care much about ipods but i see tons of them. Nokia phones are for phone nerds.
by phone nerds i mean phone people that like will go pay 800 for some overseas phone. That's not most people. I'll just say this. most of the u.s. carriers don't carry many nokia phones. Outsells iphone. I don't keep up on that kind of thing but i'd doubt they do in the states and last i checked Samsung sold the most phones total.
ddub, the iPhone is $150USD more than the Nokia N900.
Nokia own 70% of the cellphone market moron. I think the question is, do YOU buy Nokia Phones anymore. If the answer is NO, then why are you trolling over here?
ddub you really live in USA where the phones / networks are a few years behind europe and that´s why you state that silly thing...
ddub, nokia is a few years behind apple and htc. In that sense, nokia and us networks are a perfect match.
Yes, Nokia is a few years behind Apple... in marketing to the US folks.
IVokia strikes again.
That was a strange comment, If you would know a little about the mobile phone industry you would know that nokia is without a doubt the worlds largest phone manufacturer with around 50 % of the market share = half the phones in the world is made by Nokia
Awww. I was anticipating a ripoff running some form of Maemo since it is an open OS....
The analog tuner can also tune in to old football games. Or maybe it has preloaded 'Zidane corner compilation' onboard.
Analog TV would be completely useless here due to the switchover wouldn't it?
Would enable you to watch pirate TV! (Yeah that's still around)
And I wonder if that isn't actually better than the crap & flood of ads you get with mobile digital tv.
Copying is intellectually tolerated because in the end, almost everything is a copy of something else only with minor embellishment... At least that's how 99% of the world's designers justtify making their living. A house is a house is a house, for most designers. But not all.
The trouble with these kirf'ers is that they copy things agreed to be off limits... logo's / identifiers... to be tolerated only by those lame ass people who need name brand high priced merchandise but are really broke ass.
It's a kind of retribution, a nice in your face reminder that those 99% of designers are frankly wrong.
If as a society we allow these dipshits to prosper, we're basically signing our own intellectual death warrant. The choice is pretty clear... if you leave he world with only copiers, what is there to copy? I don't know why Engadget highlights each of these with a column instead of bashing them as misguided.
I'm pretty sure I saw that same response posted on another site just the other day...
'We allow'? I'm not chinese actually, but I guess you are then?
@I'm Pretty Sure...
You mean my comment? That's not impossible, but highly unlikely. I didn't post that anywhere else, and I wrote it from scratch when I saw the blog page. I am not such a unique individual however, so quite possibly, one other human being may feel the same way about this as I do. Maybe.
Anyway, what I wrote above, as is almost everything else you'll read from me, is all original. I'm not spamming or copying. I just think for myself and express what I'm thinking.
@Wwhat...
I am not from China / Taiwan / Korea / Japan. I'm from India originally, but I've been living in the US (NJ / NYC / MO / PA / LA / PA / NJ / NYC) for about 38 years, so I'd say I'm pretty much a universalist. I don't like being from a place and I don't think like most people... but to your point... I meant, if we as a SOCIETY allow... we the collective we, not the me / mine / we. Wee. ;) We the univesal consumer, we the consumer of Engadget, we the people responding to entries such as this... those we's.
By the way Wwhat... I often enjoy reading your comments. At least they're thought provoking. I used to post here as Kwikit till that ended rather abruptly. :)
Anyone notice the music? (10 Minutes by Lee Hyori)
Just a passing thought, nobody found it strange enough to comment? It gave me a good laugh.
Did you guys realize how deep into the annals of Roman Numerals you'd have to go when you started the KIRF series?
I hope to see a C in my lifetime.
analog TV tuner? then it will be a big seller here in Brazil! (even though we do have digital TV and 1seg phones)
Check out this Fondle of the N900
http://www.fonearena.com/blog/2009/09/28/nokia-n900-fondle-video.html
The antenna isn't telescoping? Deal breaker. I want an antenna that extends 4 feet minimum.
AHAHAHA! What the hell.. lmao
KIRFs have come a long way, the screen on this one seems to be as responsive as the 5800 and N97 I tried the other day.
and they're brash enough to feature the GOAT in their press photo.
Well... at least it works in portrait mode.