Fantastically fake Nokia N97i found in China
We try to avoid covering the unending waterfall of handset copies that flows out of China, but this one is so bad it’s good. Behold, the Nokia N97i. The “i“, by the way, apparently stands for “it doesn’t even have a QWERTY keypad”. Found lounging about in a shop in China, the N97i kiiiiind of, sort of, almost looks like an N97 until you turn it on… or flip it over and see the 3.2 megapixel camera… or try to slide the display up to reveal the keypad of course. In terms of the UI, it looks a little bit like S60 on a 1/10th VGA display with a hint of iPhone thrown into the mix. Yes, it’s a mess. The N97i apparently runs about 750 yuan, or $110, and will be just as popular in the US as the real N97 before the price drops. Hit the jump for more pics.
Chinese i luv em haha … they have created a copy of everything … WOW
this is commonplace in china. i was in vietnam in january and saw many copies of phones, even copies of iphones too.
if only they could make a copy of Gong Li, or Scarlett Johannsen…
anybody seen the BlueBerry?
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…….O…..YA…..I’V GOT TO HAVE ONE OF THESE PEICES OF…..SH***……THEY REALLY KNOW HOW TO TURN OUT CRAP…..AND THE SAD THING, IS E-BAY LETS THEM CALL THEM BY BRAND NAME, AND LIST/SELL THEM ON THE BAY….COMON E-BAY…..WAKE UP…….
L
I can find it in Shenzhen electronic market (Hua Qiang Bei) for about 600 RMB which is roughly $90; the UI is pretty cool. That’s the China IDH way to redesign-to-cost from Qualcomm 3.5G chipset to MediaTek MT6225 in order to address emerging markets. it’s a pity to see that they have to make copycats to do that.
Actually, Japan OEM / Sharp recently used the same strategy to penetrate Chinese market. Instead of being copied by Chinese local IDH; they have offered the ID / MD of some popular 3.5G Sharp models to a Chinese well-know ODM and asked them to redesign-to-cost the architecture by using cheaper CPU engine in order to cost down while keeping the ID of the original phone.
Result: 100Kunits/month since December ‘08 and very good brand exposure on the Chinese market. That’s the best way to reuse exclusive ID / MD look & feel and redesign-to-cost in order to address markets which were not originally targeted. Thumb-up Sharp for this smart idea.
i wonder if they could copy me..
i bought my nokia n97i in mauritius for rs5000. even if its a copy it worth
yo man, i’am from mauritius also..have u been able to activate the gprs wap thing…using emtel?? if so..what have you done to gete the config right
These Chinese are feally innovative
my nokia n97i copy works just fine!!! Go China go!!
I bought this phone but the MMS can’t work..So,how can I maek the MMS works?
I bought one too, for 700 RMB.
It is not a bad phone for the money but it’s got to go back tonight because I didn’t know that I was buying a fake.
OK, OK, it’s obvious now I have looked it up and seen the £500 price tag but last night in the shop (a genuine China Mobile shop, I might add) it was the best looking phone there.
Dear will u please tell me from where u bought this cell phone coz i want to buy it 2.
I have one if u r interested. will sell u the same price I bought it for. brand new in the box. my wife doesn’t want it. she wants a wii for christmas gift instead.
i just got this phone yesterday. and i setried to set everything up…but some function is not working as i thought it would have. does anyone know how to select the ring tone for each individual contact? and how to place image to the contact?
go to contact list and u can set up for every single person
A friend in Germany bought one and sent it to me in Ghana and the phone is really nice
i have bought one, it looks great and it can run java applications but i cant change the theme of the phone , nor change the sms ringtone , but it worth for the money
I just bought one for my wife but she doesn’t want it. so if anyone is interested I’m selling it! it looks really cool. y pay more just for the name. it’s practically the same thing.brand new in the box n everything.
Hi
I have one this and it is very nice, can you give anyone a home page that it has the software that do the pc sychronisation?
Thank you.
Hi there I recently get a N97i but when i dial a number and try to make a phone call i receive a message “fixed dial number only” Can anyone help to solve this problem?
i bought from Turkey.. this copy really good but camera and java are bad …