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Counterfeit iPhone 3Gs Becoming More Convincing at First Glance

I'm getting one in black because it matches my fake cellular phone antenna stuck on my rear window!:eek:
 
rstone3 said:
Agreed - I'm running on a plain 3G and 3.0 is great.

Other than the fact it does not work, it looks pretty good.

This video was done with a 3GS? Likely a stupid question but how can you tell? It looks great; makes me want to upgrade as well.
Click to expand...

What other camera have you seen that promotes horrible 2:3 ratio videos? It's like the N-Gage screen nightmare all over again, the exact opposite of widescreen bleh!

But yeah it's fairly obvious with the reflection and so on.

The 3G S video quality is rather good, even better than what you're experiencing on YouTube if you go with the straight video rather than a reencode. I've never been happier with a low end flash camcorder, even in very low light situations, you get grain but no confetti. (Anyone who has used digital cameras over the years will know what I mean)
 
As always, the thing I'm most amused by is the amount of accessories that the Fake ships with: case, a dock, an actual voltage adapter.

Sure the build quality and OS are lacking, but I wish Apple would cease their penny pinching, year after year. You guys remember the size of the box from the original iPod right? Besides the fact that it was honkin' huge, it was because Apple actually put stuff in the box.
 
MD5Hash said:
As always, the thing I'm most amused by is the amount of accessories that the Fake ships with: case, a dock, an actual voltage adapter.

Sure the build quality and OS are lacking, but I wish Apple would cease their penny pinching, year after year. You guys remember the size of the box from the original iPod right? Besides the fact that it was honkin' huge, it was because Apple actually put stuff in the box.
Click to expand...

Although it's nice to receive a lot of accessories, I think the penny-pinching was a good idea. It reduces the amount of materials they use in their products (not everyone needs a dock AND both USB and FireWire cables for their iPod, for example). And besides, the new iPhone costs $175 or something to make. That's a huge manufacturing cost. Including more stuff would just pass on the cost to us consumers.





As for the fake, you realise that it's not just Apple. Fake Nokias, Sony Ericssons and other such gimmicks circulate the market in China. They're not sold in official China Mobile or China Unicom stores or the abundant Carrefour supermarkets (which sell only legitimate brand name phones) but are sold in the thousands of scattered, dingy, smoky and grimy electronics markets that dot Chinese cities (I've been to many). I'll tell you one thing: these phones are dirt cheap. For many with a lower budget, it's either this, an apparently full-featured, big colour screen phone with a camera, a touch screen, data capability and dual sim capability, or a basic Nokia handset at a similar price. For the most part I found it was lower class cityfolk who used these phones. Most of them weren't fakes, per se, but design clones made by domestic manufacturers. Sure, they weren't great, but they made and received calls, and were cheap. Some people can't afford better. On the other hand, while the gap between rich and poor in China is massive, there are throngs upon throngs of middle class in the developing cities. And believe me, these people will spend a small fortune on new phones every few months.

You get an iPhone every year and a half or so? Some Chinese teenager with spiky hair gets the latest Sony PDA-cameraphone-internet-device-PSP-miniature-laptop thing every half year.

There's plenty of room in China for fakes, and for real merchandise alike. It's an interesting place.
 
Global market folks, a reminder that America doesn't rule the world. If people can't afford iPhones in poorer countries then they make clones or pirate. Apple can't expect their products to be manufactured by people who can't afford them and not have consequences.
 
alexprice said:
Who actually buys these things?

People who think they are real or people who wanna look cool but spend less?

I just don't get it!

iPhone FAIL!
Click to expand...

The real funny thing is the poor kid who thinks he’s going to be “cool” by having an iPhone and then attempts to show his friend how "cool" he is only to find out it doesn’t work like a real iPhone. FAIL! ;)
 
This is why I tend to avoid eBay when buying technology unless very, very careful. It's worse with things like flash memory, which often looks almost identical but is slower or less reliable. Or more dangerously, fake batteries.

Of course, you should know what you're buying which should at least protect you if you notice free accessories that aren't right etc.

Who would buy it? Very few people, if they knew - but often Chinese knockoffs are advertised as the real thing. Simple solutions to minimise the risk: only buy from the EU or US (ahem... for example.. or whoever you happen to trust), and always bear in mind that if the deal seems too good to be true - it probably is.
 
When I first got an iPhone 3G, I showed it to a couple of (iPhone ignorant) Gambian guys, who were INTENT on telling me that ALL touchscreen phones are iPhones, by showing me something FAR tackier & uglier than this clone is, and it had the same, sluggish UI and tacky 'chrome' finish + Asian fonts + removable battery. I had to walk away and pretend to agree with them that they did, indeed have a REAL iPhone.

I recall muttering "idiots!!" to myself as I walked away.
 
BaronvdB said:
holy crap....i'd hate to be the person that bought that off ebay....that's why i only buy/sell within the US...i know there are a lot of people outside the us that are perfectly trustworthy but just don't take the risk.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Canada & US only. Helps eliminate some things like this, plus I don't get hit with some nasty customs charges. Crossing things over the 49th is nothing compared with crossing things over the pacific.

The dock actually looks kind of neat, Instead of making fake iPhones, just make the dock and sell it legitimately as a third party accessory. I know lots of people that would buy it if it was half the price of the apple version.
 
Someone from my work place took over 100 of these similar iPhone clones to Africa to sell them. I advised against it, but he assured me he would be able to sell them.
 
Wow, if it wasn't for the lag in the software and the video name I never would have guessed this is a clone. I think it's much better than the one posted by aristotle.
 
Wooooooooowwww

That was one of the funniest videos I have ever seen in my life.
I love the part when it says loading and then okay... I just got the 3gs and it is has blazing fast speed
That was an awesome video
 
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