ZTE's Smooth Android slider is a not-so-smooth Pre knockoff
We hate to yell "Pre!" at the top of our lungs here, since we'd really like to see further exploration of the portrait QWERTY form factor for Android, but it's hard to avoid the form factor and stylistic comparisons. The new "Smooth" phone from ZTE is a low-end handset running Android 1.6, with a 2.8-inch QVGA screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and a love for Palm industrial design. The phone, which is being shown off at MWC, should retail under 1000 Yuan (about $146 US) and be released in August of this year as a low-end smartphone contender.
























Is there any way, legal or not, to get newer releases of Android on it?
@Nitesh Only if you put a gun to its screen...
@Nitesh
well you could compile the source code and flash it
@Nitesh As long as you don't rip off Google's apps it' OK to use a newer version of Android, since it's open source...
KIRF of the Alcatel KIRF... zzzzzz
@SolidSnake Which itself was a KIRF of an earlier HTC device..
It's "Pre-like" only because the author doesn't want to explore pre-Pre devices.
It would be nice to see a portrait qwerty where the screen flips to landscape, like the phone RDJ had in Iron Man.
Just like Pre is an HTC Blue Angel knock off?
http://www.technotalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/samsung-flight.jpg raeg
@ady Um...yeeaaahhh
I don't understand how a phone is a knockoff of another as long as they aren't one of those Chinese iPhone clones. The Prē looks entirely well curved and also has the Gesture area which to me is innovation a long shot away from any of these phones in comparison.
@dachiefmizzy
Exactly. The Pré is actually an amazing phone. Not sure where the negative jabs are coming from. Engadget was a big supporter of the phone.
I'd like to see a KIRF be Kirfed, and outsell the original KIRF in the same market.
So, every time a slider phone with buttons on the bottom emerges we're going to call it a knock off of something circa 1996? They can't own this. Its to plausible a design for it to be owned by anyone. No harm, no foul, and I think more manufacturers ought to explore this design model, with careful attention to the top row of keys accessibility while typing.
I remember the days when every phone with a decent sized touch screen, a small bezel, and only a few buttons on it was called an iPhone knockoff. Hell, I remember the days when every phone with a portrait keyboard was called a Blackberry knockoff.
Eventually we'll get to the point where portrait sliders will be called portrait sliders and not Pre knockoffs.
my grammar above sucked. lol. And the slider I mean is the one more similar to the g1... does that make the droid a copy of the g1, and so on and so forth?
low end or not it's nice to see something running android that doesn't cost an arm and a leg without contract.
That's dirt cheap.
why would you bother to copy a failure?
The main reason to buy a Pre is Palm's webOS. If only I could position some loudspeakers over China and have a translator scream that at them.
hmm... this looks interesting
look at this. it was put on engadget earlier today!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/18/alcatel-ot-980-with-android-hands-on-we-feel-frugal-just-lookin/
I'll PRE on that...
There's nothing wrong with a phone that looks like the Pre, especially since there were phones that existed before the Pre existed that looked like the Pre. Sheesh.