China Phones: Friend or Foe?

China’s gray market handset industry is a huge thing these days. It was non-existent in the past, but these bandit phones or locally known as “shanzhai ji” sold a whooping 750 million handsets in 2008.

The manufacturers of these counterfeit phones made it simple to produce a phone that is cheap yet packed with features. But more often, these devices were poor in quality because the technologies used for making these phones are below the standard.

Amidst the fact that these off-brand phones are low in quality, many consumers are persuaded to buy them because of the cheap prices. Consumers see these phones as disposable units since it can easily be replaced once it is broken.

Let’s do a little background check on the bandit phones that people are raving about. Gadg pointed out the top three China phone that are considered best-sellers.

Sciphone i68
The Sciphone i68 very much resembles Apple’s iPhone. Its design is undeniably similar to iPhone.: the smooth, black surface plus the home button at the lower center of the screen. The Sciphone 168 features quad-band GSM connectivity, FM tuner, G-sensir, Java Support and finger and stylus screen sensitivity. It is different from iPhone in terms of some features, quality and price. It will only cost 50 bucks to buy this phone.

Sciphone i9
The Sciphone i9 is the upgraded version of Sciphone i68. The two have the same basic features. The difference of this unit is that it has dual-SIM card slot, improved digital camera and FM recording capacity.

CECT P168
The phone is among the first clones of iPhone. Anyone can own this without signing up a contract. CECT P168 is able to take photos, show video and play music.

CECT KA08


CECT KA08 is also an iPhone clone but comes in smaller size. It is available in different colors and features loud speaker and text and voice recognition. Unfortunately, this phone does not have Java Support.