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China Debuts Apple iPhone Knock-Off
August 17, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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The latest version of Apple Inc’s popular iPhone has already hit the Chinese market — the counterfeit market that is.
The ‘hiPhone 5′ is selling for as little as 200 yuan ($31) on China’s top e-commerce platform Taobao, which is owned by Alibaba Group.
But one has to pay around 800 yuan for a more “genuine” one, according to some store representatives at a mobile phone market in Shanghai.
“Look at this. It’s not the same as the 300-400 yuan ones,” Shanghai-based daily Metro Express quoted a clerk as saying, pointing to one originally priced at 850 yuan.
The ‘hiPhone 5′ is based on leaked images of the yet-to-be-launched iPhone 5 and is thinner and with less rounded edges than the existing iPhone 4, according to the newspaper. However, it is extremely light, almost like a plastic toy, like most pirated mobile phones, it said.
RIM’s PlayBook Gets Harsh Reviews
April 17, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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RIM’s PlayBook tablet didn’t fare so well with influential technology reviewers who called the iPad competitor a rushed job that won’t even provide RIM’s wildly popular email service unless it’s hooked up to a BlackBerry.
The overwhelmingly bad initial response to a device the company hopes will get it attached to the tablet computing explosion overshadowed a splashy coming-out party in New York Thursday evening, where co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis played up the gadget’s attractiveness with corporate users.
There was little mention of the blistering reviews only hours before.
“RIM has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do email. It must be skating season in hell,” New York Times’ David Pogue wrote in a review published on Thursday.
Research In Motion built its reputation on a BlackBerry email service that it says is so secure that it can’t bow to government requests to tap messages, winning high-profile customers in business, defense and politics before branching out to a wider consumer market.
But the PlayBook, which hits North American store shelves on Tuesday, offers that secure service only in tandem with a BlackBerry. RIM says secure email and other key services will come later, not at launch.