Shanzhai ji gallery: Fake phones from China

By Brendon Chase and Derek Fung on 10 July 2009

Our erstwhile Shanghai correspondent Brendon Chase wanders into a Shanghai tech market to sort the fake from the real and to see how the fake iPhones stack up to the real thing.

For more information on Shanzhai phones — how they're made, drawbacks, how to identify one and so forth — check out our behind-the-scenes look at the Shanzhai phone market.

A range of Apple branded flip phones, including an iPhone Air.

(Credit: Brendon Chase/CBS Interactive)

Topics: fake, imitation, iphone, nokia, obama, Shanzhai, shanzhai ji, counterfeit, cbs, chase

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Comments (20)

  • d commented on 11/11/2009 23:05 Report abuse

    shanzhai is a chinese term coined only within the last few years. it means fake. and originally it referred just to mobile phones. but now the term's use has expanded so much, it replaces the original word for fake. shanzhai celebrities, shanzhai furniture, etc etc.

  • palabattle commented on 08/11/2009 10:44 Report abuse

    ENGLISH VERSION

    Recently, there are many brands of China or Singapore Mobile Phones and almost of them are fake mobile phones with cheap price. The article beneath will give some information about the harmful things of China and Singapore fake mobile phone.


    Fake Mobile Phone Made In China and Reasons Why We Should Not Use It


    iPhone Hocamdao (iPhone Hồ Cẩm Đào), a name given to China fake mobile phone in Vietnam, or many copy brands mobile phone from Samsung, Nokia, LG etc… All of them often have no manufacturing license and warranty. They have no operation system and java support (j2me), many functions on these mobile often hard set up on system and unable to set up more if customer want to. Although these mobile phones have cheap price with many interested functions and good trading, but there are many complex and intricate things that make China fake mobile phone become a big trouble for customers.

    First of all, camera function of fake mobile from China has only 1.2 – 2 mega pixels although the statistic on its cover stretches that its ability is more than 3 – 5 mega pixels. Also, the real quality of its taken pictures is worse than those of the regular cell phone with the same mega pixel statistic. In addition, the zoom function in camera has problems, the function is showing in the cell phone but uncontrolled; it is just a fake function and useless. Furthermore, the size of the taken pictures is really just about 384 x 256 for maximum size although it shows that the size for pictures is 640 x 480. Finally, there are some more functions for user to correct the quality of pictures but they have no effected.

    Secondly, the slide show of pictures on these fake mobile phones has only effective for some type of digital pictures like bmp, gif, jpg and png; but the png and gif are only expressed in these mobile phones with the size 640 x 480. In addition, only every digital picture has slow quality which is about not over 800 x 600 size and limited amount of colors could be able to manifest in these phones. Therefore, some of digital pictures which are made by Photoshop or digital camera are not able to exist in these fake mobile phones. Finally, if the customers want to obtain these digital pictures for their mobile phone, they must be correct the quality of digital pictures before install them into their phone.

    Thirdly, the music player function on fake mobile phones has no ability for playing wma files. Wma file is a most common type of digital music on other music player equipments. So it is a big gap for music player on fake mobile phones. Finally, they are able to play some types of digital music like acc, au, mid, mp3 but unable to stick the time while playing music.

    Fourthly, the video player function on these mobile phones has bad quality and difficult for users. It is nearly impossible for users who are not good in information technology. The video player only plays 3gp and mp4 video files with the quality are not over 20 frames per second, a slowest quality of digital video. In addition, the video player also plays the video file incorrect time dual to the sound and pictures. Also, it is picky in playing video files which able to play on other mobile phones. Therefore, if the customers want to play the video files on these mobile, they must correct the quality of them before install into their mobile phone; it also take a lot of time to correct the video files on computer. Finally, there are some more functions in video player of fake mobile phones like equalize the bright, contract and auto repeat of video, but they are uncontrolled; there is only auto repeat video player has effective, and the others are ineffective.

    Fifthly, games on these fake mobile phones mean nothing in its functions; because the phones don’t support java, so how games could be being on them? Of course these mobile phones are also unable to install games any more. Most of China fake mobile phones are using many model functions, so the games for them must be suitable for its system; that why these fake mobile phones haven’t game for playing because the unable to installed. If there are some of fake mobile phones have some available games on their system, so they could be played; if not, the customers are unable to install games any more.

    Sixthly, GPRS connecting couldn’t be installed on these fake cell phones because they originally don’t support GPRS themselves. There are many ads declare that these fake mobile telephone could use GPRS and even there are some functions for installing GPRS on these mobile phones, but when we attempt to install GPRS for these cell phones, it doesn’t effect, nothing can’t be done. As a result, these fake cell phones its self unable to use GPRS anymore; by the way, these cell phones couldn’t access internet either.

    Seventhly, the sound on these fake cell phones is very small and boor quality. When using the cell phones in public place, it almost unable to hear its voice because its sound cannot get overthrow noises. Therefore, audio files must be increase the level of sound before install into the cell phone; often the audio files increased 3 or 6 times higher than original sound. But although the audio file is already increased its sound, it also makes a lot of noise or cracked voice during its playing just because the sound is over increased and break its voice structure. In addition, there are some functions in the cell phone to increase the quality of its sound like Classical, Treble, Party, Pop, Rock etc. but they don’t effective. Finally, due to the trouble of its sound, the fake cell phone is hard to make a conversation at public places; so the customers must be but the cell phone next to their ear to hear its voice although they using the hi-free.

    Eighthly, the search contact function on these fake cell phones has some trouble too. For example, when user enters the key words for searching, the result often shows the wrong contact although user input right the name of finding contact. Therefore, users sometime must use the original search contact function stay deep in the cell phones to search the contact they want. So it takes a lot of time for using this function.

    Ninthly, the eBook reader function on these fake cell phones is boor quality; it only read txt file, a file that content word or number as text script using on computer, and no longer able to read other types of eBook. So it is poorly to transfer other type of eBook into txt file; also all of the formats of text script will gone out if we transfer the eBook into txt file.

    Tenthly, television function on cell phones is a key to appeal a lot of customers for using the hi-tech cell phones; but in fake cell phones, this function is very poor quality, it doesn’t catch any basic channels although the signal is in good condition. Even though we but the fake cell phone next to the television station, it also cannot catch any signal too. In addition, even the cell phone its self has an antenna, the signal is obtained and the cell phone able to process the television, but its scene doesn’t in good condition, because it is very shocked and every frame distant in one second.

    Finally, the ten events about China fake mobile phone just mentioned above makes a caution about the harmful of fake mobile phone in market today. Fake mobile phones and other fake products from China make a lot of trouble for customers inside and outside our country today, so we should look carefully and pay more attention for our purchasing in market today. This article its self makes a picture about the damaging effect of fake cell phone from China and Singapore to caution customers and help customers to point out the bad side of China fake mobile phone.

    Regard

  • Shanzhai commented on 02/08/2009 13:12 Report abuse

    look, this funny, shanzhai mobile phone website
    www.shanzhai-mobile-phone.com

  • Andrew commented on 27/07/2009 21:30 Report abuse

    Page 33, I noticed the phone is blackberry but it is using HTC Touchflow...

  • just passing wind commented on 27/07/2009 16:02 Report abuse

    its merely different copyright laws.. and the power of brand.

    i'd be more interested to see an article on how come it seems to an outside observer that chinese telcos wont let any mobile phones come with wifi, aka the iphone not being released unless it comes without its wifi abilities(thus why so many copies/styles), E71 not coming with wifi.. in fact no mobile sold on the mainland comes with wifi and yet you can get a wifi enabled phone from hong kong... i wonder what multi billion dollar reason there could be for that... not to mention the lack of development of their 3G network..

  • ****e commented on 24/07/2009 14:29 Report abuse

    In my house 90% of the electronics are made in asia and yes mostly in china, I don't care if it was copied or fake so long as it works and my money was worth.

  • ?? commented on 15/07/2009 22:54 Report abuse

    Curious as I may be, but some of these phones seemed to be working Fine???

  • What does it matter to you? commented on 15/07/2009 22:51 Report abuse

    I strongly disagree with what these comments above. they ought to be ashamed of themselves. and you call yourselves Aussies. I myself have Chinese descent. just because it happens in China, does not stereotypes the fact that sometimes (actually very seldom) good quality products come from China. they are rip off brands but as the header said, is illegal. thus, the original sellers are persecuted rightfully and with righteousness. it does not make any difference whether this happens over there or over here. i'm sure we would have done the same thing and come down hard. the country should not be typified through the view of mere "second grade countries" or products. though things like this do happen.

  • wolf commented on 15/07/2009 11:28 Report abuse

    oh yeah, a friend of mine just got back with a fake iphone he says he got for 80 dollars, wich is pretty good value but this phone can only has like 3mb of memory which isn't enough.

  • Been to Shanghai commented on 14/07/2009 18:30 Report abuse

    Starphone (iphone rip off) was widely avalible on the shopping channel @ $200 AU

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