It's been almost three years since we saw our
first taste of the Meizu M8, which was at that point a fairly shameless rip of the iPhone, albeit mostly theoretical. In the ensuing years we've seen an ever-changing OS and
two generations of hardware, but we might be finally coming upon something worth lusting after. The new M8 Firmware 1.0.0.1 beta has been demo'd on video, and seems to be taking some new cues from Android and Windows Mobile -- along with some original and sexy UI elements of Meizu's own devising -- that really set it apart from its iPhone-aping days of yore. We're particularly fond of the unlock screen, which has three icons at the bottom that can be swiped-up like an Android app drawer, but with quick access to phone and messages, similar to how Windows Mobile 6.5 can be unlocked into multiple modes. Apparently the OS is only 50% ready, and there's no telling how many changes we might see between now and when it's finished, but for now we're fairly impressed. Video is after the break.
posted Nov 3rd 2009 10:33AM
wow, that lockscreen is an awesome idea! I'd like to see it on android.
stock android that is.
it looks to have done a great job of taking the best of both android and the iphone and then mixing in some great ideas of its own...
Can't wait to pick this up at my local Wal-Mart, Target or Best Buy.
Oh wait...this is another China knockoff we'll never see in stores. Never mind.
If you're going to Walmart, Target, and Best Buy for electronic devices, you shouldn't be on this site.
hmmmm, just checked NewEgg.....it's not even listed. Like you've never bought anything at a big box retailer, eh?
You can buy them here easily. You see, there's such a thing as buying and shipping a product from 1 country to another. Might be too complicated for you to understand but what you do is buy it online, and then have it ship to the US.
i bought my meizu miniplayer on amazon; a rebranded version was selling at walgreens a few months later
So to be an elite cool Engadget electronic shopper you can only shop at your personal preference of electronic store or online? Don't be such an elitist Dafrety. People buy electronics where is is convenient and they can browse as well as at online stores, etc.
accelerometer worked WELL!
i hope that wood design in the back will disappear it makes me already wanna puke after only watching 2:15min ...
That's just my custom wallpaper...
wow wat an iphone rippoff 3gs pwns this
Its more like iPhone UI + Android UI. Android for the dragging such as in the lockscreen. iPhone for the apps like the Calc Calender Clock etc...
it's as if Android OS and the iphone OS had a baby together...
NICE!...
Actually I'm a bit impressed. And does this beta mean that they have left the "alpha" stage of the previous firmwares? I always thought the M8 had some quite decent hardware, but it was let down by the OS (WinCE is all good and well, but I want to have a big app store...) and the lack of WiFi, 3G and GPS. Too bad they didn't build this on top of Android... that would have been awesome. (+ someone might port some of that code to my Magic...).
If Microsoft was smart they would sweep this company up and trash Windows Mobile altogether. This would possibly give the Zune a slim chance at survival and at a minimum help the company better compete with Android, Palm Web OS, and the Apple’s Juggernaut OS.
But Microsoft is probably working hard on WinMo 7, which, I hope, is based on WinCE 6.0 (or whatever the current version is), and not on that outdated version that WinMo 6.5 uses. If that wouldn't be the case, then yes, I agree.
However I like Meizu more for their hardware than their software, which can be, well, troublesome at times. But the hardware is rock solid, and they had a high resolution screen (800x480 or something like that) running smoothly before pretty much everyone else. I've seen it, and it was really impressive (though I quite like Samsungs OLED screens too).
Meizu is Microsoft wince 6 Join Developer Partner (JDP), have news that Microsoft provide 60 milion to Meizu for this development,
Meizu has been selected as Windows CE 7 JDP
Well, it would be cool if you could port this to another phone.
that is surprisingly sweet! i'm impressed with that!
In this week,this phone became Mobile Sales List No. 1 on CCTV2,from China.
Does it have wifi? and does it work in the usa?
It does work in the USA because it's a quad-band phone, and also it has Wifi (M8SE has Wapi too).
I'll say it looks desirable when it atleast has nice icons and a non-china-bootleg looking system font
actually the icons are ok. I just can't stand that asian "roman" character font gb2312
This actually looks quite usable and I like that it's very customizable while having an easy to use interface. It seems like a viable alternative to Android and iPhone OS. If they could make this into a platform, that would be sweet. Does anyone know what kind of OS this is btw?
It's based on Windows CE, I think 6.0. Everything else is Meizus work.
Everybody hates on Meizu, but I think what they do is great.
No, I'M Meizu.
They began a phrase with 'i', SUE THEM!
anyone know where i can get that wallpaper? wanna add it to my iphone if possible.
Not sure exactly which one you mean but here's the lock wallpaper: http://i33.tinypic.com/2qtuzo6.jpg
and the desktop wallpaper: http://i37.tinypic.com/2r5s1te.jpg
Does it even work in the US? I can't remember.
yes.It does work very well!
If it's open-source for apps and allows an open-market for developers, Meizu's got a real money maker in their hands.
Wow. You've had 3 years to clone iPhone. N this is all u got. Hmmmh.
iPhone/Pre with a little dash of Android for good luck... Yum?
Keep in mind that this was promised to be released in August...
Seriously, anyone thinking of buying anything from them probably isn't aware of the full picture.
This company has been unable to keep any promise made since they started talking about the M8.
The specs are worse, the release date came 18months after, the support is awful, the firmware are all betas and buggy, etc.
Meizu is all about broken promises and people who can barely talk English back to you.
It's been formally released to the market since last December. I saw it in the Meizu store in Shanghai (Tian Yao Qiao Rd.), about 400 meters south to the BestBuy megastore there.
I tried and wanted it to replace my wife's Nokia X5800. But she didn't like the look and preferred to save that 180GBP...It's just around 1900RMB now, which is about 280$$. The biggest pro is the music it played sounds much better than my iPod and iPhone... Anyway I won't trust it as a heavy workload smartphone at the moment. But surely it's a good piece of fun for multimedia.
They are from an Asian country and Asian business people like to take their time with products, at least that is what i learned in my business communications class. unlike those from North America, like apple, who manages to release a new iPod every 2-3 months, if they took their time they could produce something that could last 3-4 years with out updating hardware. But yes don't expect this to be released by the predicted date.
The UI looks sexy. I think people should stop comparing UIs to other phones cause they all have the same UI in a way. Touching, sliding, tabs, and icons arranged in a grid there really isn't much you can do with a touch screen UI that is incredibly different from another. What do you want Meizu to do? put the icons all over the place?
DID ANYONE NOTICE THE 7.65GB CAPACITY AT ABOUT 1:37 on the video?!?!?!?
AWESOME! Lets port android to it, and I'm IN!
Yes, Meizu M8 has 8GB and 16GB version
nice2know_u, are you from Hungary? Where did u get this? I've got an iphone,but to be honest, Meizu's UI looks prettier to me..
Actually there have dual boot for Android and Meizu Original Firmware. I had try before really cool. Too bad Android for Meizu M8 is just a preview, still can't use phone and sms but can see the future of the Meizu!