Meizu at German Spiegel

Europe's largest magazine, Der Spiegel, has written an online article about Meizu.

It actually somewhat criticizes the company, saying that the products are too much like Apple's, and even opens with the headline "Meizu wants to be Apple".

It's a good thing that Meizu is getting more public attention, but they will need to create their own original product and succeed. Software-wise, Meizu is good to go, but the hardware needs to be more original. Even the home button is currently too alike.

Read | Source - Thanks crimson05!

no problem ;-)

they do not only critize they also accent the quality of the products

I agree that the next step for Meizu should be more original. (Hardware)

Viel dank crimson05

Hello,
I'm a german. If you have questions about the translation you can ask me. O hope I can translate it.

One question about the text. I've read that the Meizu will released in India and later als in the USA. But I mind that I read here in the forum, that the M8 only will released in China. What's about a release in Europe?

blessings,
kruemel

M8 India release is bullshit. Just two Indian "companies" fighting on the internet. They will also have to wait for M8w.

Honestly you can't get much more "original" than what they have done. Its a rectangle with a touchscreen and a single button... what else can you do with a phone focused on a touchscreen-for-all solution? The most you could do is remove all buttons and go with a completely touchscreen phone with zero non-screen area on the face, which really is a bad idea (where would you hold it safely?) The fact is that you can't take much more off of the phone. Who really gives a crap if they look similar anyway? The durability of the parts combined with the quality of the software is all that matters to me. Functioning quality, not originality.

Honestly I think the iPhone is a crappy product that breaks easily and is locked down so tight that when I see people who have one I feel sorry for them. I've had an iphone... for 10 minutes. The damn thing broke in the store when the display shattered from being dropped about 7 inches onto the display case (which didn't budge) when the salesman was giving me the phone back. Subsiquently, he proceeded with my refund immediately. While I'm sure the salesman should have been more careful, my HTC Kaiser has made 5 foot drops onto concrete and keeps working, no scratches no touch screen issues nothing.

@rezalas:
The are various things Meizu could have done to avoid the Apple-clone stamp. First principle; rectangle screen with a single prominent button below it on the front with a typical black colour behind the rest of the front surface -> you're not convincing me that that's the only way to make a touchphone look from the front. No, I never hold a prada so I don't know how much the 'black glass' resembles with that, but apperantly people never called the iPhone a Prada-clone as much. Again, the sloped bezel on the front is exacty the same from the iTouch first-gen.

The back looks fine. Pretty actually, different from any Apple product. I'll forgive them for the typical sleep-wake button on top and the music button is even something i miss on my iPhone (-> i would like a shutter-button when using the camera).

Then we come to the GUI, which in my eyes just look like the iPhone-GUI with a Winterboard-theme on it. Things like a vertical alfabet on the right side in a list and pushing-hold an icon to move them around on the 'homescreen' are just directly from the iPhone. You can't call that inspired anymore. Again, the homescreen; a grid with small icons and text beneath them with in rows of four -> at least make something different. Again, i'm talking about the basic principles of the Meizu-GUI which were the 'evolutionary' improvements of the iPhone-GUI compared to things like WinMo at that time.

Again, the rest of the GUI looks fine, very nice even, only those principle's make it look to me at least as a iPhone-skin. I don't think there's anything wrong with that; It just makes people looking at the m8 recocnize the iPhone in it.

Meizu is still on the bottom if Chinese rip-offs though. I watched this video this morning and it was the standard-example of ripping off you could imagine.



Remark 1: Now this takes GUTS - explains what's being said throughout the movie
Remark 2: At 2:03 I love the *shake* too :D:P

Since the release of the M8 and more recently previews of the Palm Pre I have noticed a couple of articles over at MacRumours regarding Apples current legal stance on devices that incorporate\mimic iPhone design and software indicating that they will aggressively pursue any company perceived as ripping off the iPhone.

Well, I don't want to talk about any specific company. I'm just making a general statement that we think competition is good. It makes us all better. And we are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal. I don't know that I could be more clear than that.

They were also recently granted another US Patent covering UI design, multi-touch and gesture driven software commands.

Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics.

With so many similarities it will be interesting to see how they react once the M8 becomes more widely available outside of China.

Links to articles:
Multi-Touch Patent
Apple Will Aggressively Protect iPhone Intellectual Property

Originally Posted by rezalas

Honestly you can't get much more "original" than what they have done. Its a rectangle with a touchscreen and a single button... what else can you do with a phone focused on a touchscreen-for-all solution? The most you could do is remove all buttons and go with a completely touchscreen phone with zero non-screen area on the face, which really is a bad idea (where would you hold it safely?) The fact is that you can't take much more off of the phone. Who really gives a crap if they look similar anyway? The durability of the parts combined with the quality of the software is all that matters to me. Functioning quality, not originality.

Honestly I think the iPhone is a crappy product that breaks easily and is locked down so tight that when I see people who have one I feel sorry for them. I've had an iphone... for 10 minutes. The damn thing broke in the store when the display shattered from being dropped about 7 inches onto the display case (which didn't budge) when the salesman was giving me the phone back. Subsiquently, he proceeded with my refund immediately. While I'm sure the salesman should have been more careful, my HTC Kaiser has made 5 foot drops onto concrete and keeps working, no scratches no touch screen issues nothing.

Are you kidding me? What can you get from a m8 that's not in the iphone? You must be kidding me.

If the iphone did not exist, who knows what kind of phones companies would be taking out. The iphone inspired companies to make better original phones, not iclones, like the m8. The reason the iphone is so great is because of its originality and uniqueness. THAT IS THE REASON WHY THE PALM PRE IS GETTING SO MUCH PRAISE- ITS ORIGINALITY.

CASE CLOSED

Sure, the M8 may be similar to the iPhone, but there is definitely things on the M8 that you don't have on the iPhone. If you bothered to process some basic info through your brain, you would probably know. If not that, you could have read any of the many threads discussing the differences (HINT: sound, screen, platform, etc). But no.

Also, your old account was banned for a reason, this does not mean that you are free to create a new account. Please wait for the ban time to elapse.

Originally Posted by talhaiismail

some idiocy

God, I'm glad this retard was banned.

The fact that the M8 supports direct playback of AVI, DIVX, MP3, etc. and lots of other formats alone makes it superior to the iPhone.

Im totally in 4 one.

I read the German version of the Spiegel article, and considering this is a German magazine writing about a Chinese company, I find the article not to be very negative at all.

"It actually somewhat criticizes the company..."

Au contraire: I find the article quite flattering, in lieu of them actually testing the unit themselves, they mention numerous times in the article that the consensus of all who have tested/disassembled the Meizu M8 find it to be well built and of high quality.
They also mention that no litigation has taken place on part of Apple, hinting and writing it is NOT a ripoff.

Overall, I find the article quite positive.