I witnessed first hand yesterday on a trip to the local phone market, that the iPhone 5 isn’t as popular as previous versions, and as such there is less demand for quality knock-offs.
However there is a small market for iPhone 5 clones, it’s just a shame that most of the ones we have seen have been compromised in some way or another.
Take the iPhone 5 knock-off for example. The body of this clone is practically a 1:1 replica of the real iPhone 5 even down to the use of a Lightning connector for charging and data transfer!
The Android Jelly Bean OS has been given a very realistic iOS 6 skin, and the general fit and quality of the device looks spot on.
But if we take a closer look we begin to seen corners have been cut.
The specification starts off well enough, and features a dual-core MT6517 processor, unfortunately it is only running at 1Ghz and has to operate with only 512mb RAM, and with that heavy iOS skin we don’t imagine the phone to be the most spritely in the world.
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Looking further we can see that design form has won over function, and this MTK phone only get’s a single SIM, despite being technically capable of supporting dual-sim standby.
Screen resolution is way down too at just 854 x 480 for the 4-inch display, previous iPhone clones were getting retina models.
Even that near perfect looking iOS skin isn’t perfect and features spelling mistakes which really take the shine off your otherwise great looking clone.
Were trying to contact the manufactures to learn more about the phone and see if they have a slightly more powerful 1GB RAM, high-resolution model available without the typos!
Apparently you found one of the GooPhone I5 knock-offs (yes, even clones get cloned nowadays), what sports low-spec hardware compared to the original.
You had a really nice article about it a few weeks ago, what detailed the I5 nicely.
The currently released Lite model sports the MTK6577 dual-core CPU with 1GB of RAM and a HD (720p) 4″ screen, its specialty that there is only minimal space between the screen and the touch panel (so you cannot see “under” the capacitive glass), it has the Lighting connector too, and the same chassis.
The other model, the final one, will have a quad-core MTK6589, along with the previous specs (1GB RAM, same screen, etc).
There is no way of extension by SD card though, so the storage is 16 or 32GB fixed.
Hi,
Im very interested in this iphone knock-offs since i first heard of goophone i5.
But im way too far from China, and i wonder, where can i get one of this?
Is there any web store i can buy it and dont worry about getting a clone of the clone?
Im from Brazil and dont know any chinese.
What can you say?
Thanks in advance.
Nice reviews Hua! Are you in Shenzhen??
It´d be nice if you could show us the address of those markets,
maybe on an illustrated map 😉
Would you know where to find nice phones in Guahgzhou?
I’m visiting there late this month and I’m thinking about buying
one of those good rated chinese phones!
Thank you.
Denis
You can buy those phones everywhere in Shenzhen. Especially in Shenzhen Huaqiang North electronic market,the biggest electronic market in Asia!
I ordered this GooPhone (knockoff I believe):
http://www.dhgate.com/product/mtk6517-256m-ram-wifi-1-0ghz-4-0-multi-touch/158311596.html#s5-15-1%7C1259371228
yesterday & am super excited for it to arrive. I’m not incredibly tech savvy & am a little nervousness about setting it up with AT&T & getting the best use out of it. Any pointers? Thanks!