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Beware the famous iPhone 5 killer - almost exact replica running Android. I
won't sing much about it - there's enough praising crap posted by sellers
all over the internet. I'll only say the quality is really good, the display
is if not Retina, but at least a very good IPS. The interface is as close to
iOS as possible, but Google Play Store works and all apps could be easily
downloaded and installed. So its a great way for those who want to ditch
iOS and get used to Android, or for those whose only requirement to a
smartphone is beautiful icons, which is mostly the only product Apple makes.
The phone uses the now-standard Apple Lightning cable for sync and charge,
the connector is exactly the same two-sided one. Other iPhone accessories
like charges, cases and screen protectors also fit perfectly. So the replica
is really close to original, and the orthodox Android is always a good thing.
By the way, the phone ships already rooted, no need to dance around with flashers.
Hooray! There are minor annoyances with the interface,
like sliders being actually buttons and making no sense sliding them.
A barely noticeable lag exists when scrolling the desktop left to right,
but it is really really a fragment of a second an may be a software issue, which
could be probably fixed in a newer firmware. Well, new firmwares for
Chinese phones are very rare events. Also when the device is locked - mind,
locked - it takes about a second to wake up, which is actually quite
common in the Android world. That isn't really that much of a problem.
In general, a very pleasing device - at a minimum price, you get 4 core processor,
2 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs of storage. But this is not my first day in this world.
And by no means this is my first Chinese product. I can feel it with my guts:
they've tried to screw me around. The first and obvious thing to check is the
built in memory. For many years now, Chinese manufacturers have been skamming consumers
with players and memory cards boasting 32Gb capacity, but in fact have about
4 gigs of real capacity, and all the rest is just null. This phone is not
an exemption. The about page says it has 32 of storage and 23 of which is free.
But a system check utility shows only about gig of system memory and about 7
on the sdcard, leaving us with about 8 gigs of total memory. Which is like
4 times less than the advertised 32. This is confirmed by the factory menu, which
shows something about 2 gigs of the system and 7 gigs on the sdcard.
The RAM is also far less than 2 gigs. Even though the sysinfo utility shows
1 gig, judging by the free memory there is only 512 megs. Which, once again
is 4 times less than advertised. And the screen is not above 1000 pixels,
but twice less. Talking about the sysinfo utility. It showed
4-core MT6589 processor, while the factory menu shows a very different processor
- single core MT6575. So do we also get 4 times less cores?
Let's run a benchmark, which by the way warns us the processor info is fake.
The benchmark results clearly show it is a single core, MT6575 processor.
Which runs at 1 Ghz, not 2 Ghz. Also, there is no light and proximity sensor,
even though the utility shows it exists. That's why automatic brightness
doesn't work, and the proximity sensor is emulated by a bar in the upper part
of the screen when a call is in progress. When you touch it with your ear,
it switches off the touchscreen. So, what's the conclusion?
Well. it would be stupid to hope that at such a tiny price you would get top
hardware. On the other hand, the storage is enough to save quite a few
books, songs and movies, let alone apps. The processor power is enough to
output graphics in the real display resolution, which is confirmed by nice
interface flow. Overall, the device leaves very pleasant sensations,
which is not true about the original Apple iPhone 5. Yes, you heard
me right, I don't like the original iPhone because of its closed nature and endless
castrations, leading to a very limited functionality. And this Chinese creation
running Android in quite nice from technical point of view, and aesthetically
they are indistinguishable. So I'm quite pleased with the purchase. Well,
it's not exactly good that the manufacturer tried to deceive me about the
device real specs, but I was kinda prepared for that. So if you ever plan to
invest in a Chinese smartphone, get your sysinfo software ready to determine
its real hardware.
iPhone 5 32gb Android MTK MT6589 Quad-Core ARMv7 Processor, 1.5 GHz Google Android 4.2 GPS 58.6*123.8*7.6 mm 112 g Retina 1136*640 3264å2448 1080p HD 1.3 720p LED 2 Gb 32 Gb WiFi (b/g/n), WiFi Direct Bluetooth 4.0
Hardware : MT6575 (MT6589 is Fake!) Model : iPhone5 Build number : ALPS.ICS2.MP.V1.20 Build date UTC : 20130131-062306 Android v : 4.1.5 Baseband v: MAUI.11AMD.W12.22.SP.V7, 2012/09/14 18:37 Kernel v : 3.0.13 (root@zonglibo-desktop) (gcc version 4.4.3 (GCC) ) #1 Thu Jan 31 14:19:03 CST 2013 Uboot build v : MAIN2.2.ubt.4498 LCD Driver IC : 1-nt35510_mipi