The Iphone's evil twin

Chinese company - Meizu, usually known for making cheap/ugly (but quality built) ipod looking mp3players. Have finally finished and launched samples of what has been a painful 2 year struggle, of yet another somewhat familiar looking device. Yes, the Meizu M8, the "iphone clone".... the evil twin.... have finally found its way out of the production line and into the open arms of reviewers and fondlers everywhere.

Meizu's goal was clear from the start: To sincerely live up to the quality of the iphone, while still surpassing it on the specifications. Frightening about this, is that after almost going out of business, it looks as if they actually pulled something good off.

So what is really so interesting about this that i wanna go post about it? Well, multiple reasons actually. Two of them being intellectual properties (rights to designs/thoughts etc.) and format support. Does apple really hold the right to squares with rounded corners? Does everything have to be closed up in a box of itunes in order for you to play with it? Well.... Apparently not.

Again i find parts of the basic iphone concepts intrigueing, though i have some general dislikings for it. Some of them very solveable, but proven difficult for many phone manufacturers. One being that, i cannot see what i would use a video playing device for, when companies like apple does not deliver video downloads/purchases in Scandinavia and along it, offer no alternative. Conversion sucks, it is time consuming and dumb. Second is the actual codec supports for audio/video. Why should i settle for measly couple of codecs (apple and mp3)? Third: battery. Battery time is freaking vital when you have a phone that wants to double as your media tablet. So an internal battery that only last a bit over a day, such as in the iphone, is just not acceptable in my opinion. Wrapping those failures in a nasty 90's chrome front, just makes me wanna run for the hills.

So, why shouldnt a Meizu M8 be a fair choice above all the other companies like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Lg and Htc? All of them companies that dont wanna look towards the consumer, because theyre too busy to put out 60 identical devices a year.

The specifications of the Meizu M8 speak for them self. It will be cheaper, not locked to a carrier, it is smaller than the iphone (with the looks of an ipod touch), it has a 480x720 resolution which is double than most phones/mediaplayers (iphone included), it has a better camera at 3.2 megapixels (iphone at 2.0 mp), it has a removable battery, the new Opera browser and last but least, a massive list of codec supports. Audio being- mp3, wma, ogg, flac, ape, aac, and wav. Video doing- Wmv, Avi, Divx, Xvid, Mpeg and even Flv. That is to me all in all, freakishly impressive. Best of all, it comes in colors all black or all white, simple and clean (no chrome).

Heres a closer at what were dealing with.

The M8 browsing with Opera. Notice how responsive the screen is. Am actually quite impressed by this.


Playing music. Notice the swipe functions between play and visualizer. Wonder if one could add extensive cover art for individual albums?.


Keyboard and typing.


So to sum up. I really do stay impressed and hope to see this fair little bastard up for grabs very soon. Ofcourse it needs to withstand a boatload more trials before ending up in true consumer hands. But, overall, it states pretty clear- Its not a piece of junk. Today, that in itself is some sign of quality.


PS: Heres a translated i depth review of the M8 with loads of details and pictures from it168.com.