Buyer beware in China
There are many enterprising bandit phone entrepreneurs in China who make their living by replicating popular handsets. These pretty on the outside but crippled underneath phones often bear a striking resemblance to the genuine article. But the money spent on outside polish is saved on the internal software and componentry. The result is a disposable by design phone that often disappoints.
Can you tell the difference between the bandit iClone and the real iPhone? The mobile phone team over at pconline.com have done a side-by-side comparison of a 16GB iPhone 3G with a bandit phone version of the same (see photos below). To learn the phony from the real McCoy, please visit the original post where there are many additional photos > in Mandarin and > in English
The bandit phone (shanzhai ji) pheomenon
Excerpt from iPhonAsia’s (Dan Butterfied’s) interview with Mobinode TV – July 17, 2009:
It will also be important for Apple to work with Chinese authorities to protect Apple’s intellectual property. Shanzhai ji counterfeit phones (“Shanzhai” culture is a rebellion against the monopoly sectors) are everywhere and many of these cheap knock-offs cross the boundary of imitation and into the realm of outright rip-off. While there are many Shanzhai ji iClones (iPhone look-alikes), no major manufacturer is immune to the bandit phones phenomena.
As a side point of interest, the Shanzhai (“bandit phones”) market in China has grown exponentially in the last few years. Virtually all brand name phones have a Shanzhai ji look-alike. Government authorities will admit that approximately 25% of all phones sold are Shanzhai ji knock-offs, but (including grey-market sales with bandit phone sales) the real numbers may be closer to 40%. The Shanzhai ji economics are compelling. A bandit phone entrepreneur can drive his Ferrari over to Hong Kong and acquire chipsets and components from MediaTek and other suppliers and quickly set up an assembly line. These backroom operations often sprout up and disappear in a matter of months. It only takes a small team of engineers a few weeks time to prototype their next bandit phone. A Shanzhai entrepreneur might knock out a phone for about 300 CNY ($44 USD) and sell it for 600 CNY ($88 USD) with no pesky government taxes or licensing fees to cut into the fat profit margin. If the entrepreneur sells 23,000 units, he is now a millionaire. The bandit production operation will then shutdown only to appear again in another obscure warehouse. Rinse and repeat.
Of course you get what you pay for. I had an iPhonAsia reader write to me recently to complain about the “iPhone” she purchased while on holiday in Shanghai. It had poor audio quality, a screen pixilation problem, and after six weeks of use, it no longer worked. When I wrote her back inquiring about how/where she came to buy this phone, she confessed that it “really looked like an iPhone” but when she took it to the Apple store, the Genius instantly recognized she had purchased a counterfeit iClone. “Ah, that explains why it was so inexpensive.” Yep, there’s one born every minute.
