Nokla E97
Well while I’m not too sure as to which phone this is supposed to knock-off: the N97 or the E90, I must admit that is one good looking knock-off. In fact, I wouldn’t mind picking one up just to play around with it.
We already know that China is in the stages of “copy-catting”, so to speak, where the copy-cats look at what’s currently out there, what’s popular, and make it better. The perfect example would be the Meizu M8 which, unlike “The Engine That Could”, actually managed to fight of Apple’s lawyers and get publicly, officially released! But even better yet, they managed to have several improvements over the iPhone! Although I won’t get into that now.
Nokla E97
At a somewhat different angle, the Nokla E97 makes a couple improvements over whatever cellphone it is that it’s trying to copy. For one, the design of the QWERTY keyboard looks exquisite – the piano black finish, the shiny bevel and the white D-pad all make the phone look expensive. The keyboard is also detachable, which is a nice addition since size does matter at times and carrying around a big heavy phone might not always be convenient; thus taking the keyboard off is really a logical solution! The phone also has handwriting recognition, presumably either on the screen or on the part of the keyboard that doesn’t have any keys (I don’t see what else it would be used for, if at all). And for those living in countries split over which carrier to use, or those traveling a lot or who need to have a work phone, the knock-off also supports dual SIM cards.
Nokla E97 - keyboard off
Of course, there are some downsides. For one, the screen is a puny 2.2″ and likely is a QVGA resolution. Second, and probably biggest issue, is the keyboard doesn’t look like its going to last a heck of a long time. But of course when the phone costs 800 Yuan (or about 130 CAD), we really can’t expect much more.
All in all I am quite impressed with this little knock-off and if I can find a way to import it for cheap, I might just pick it up to play around with it. Its certainly no smartphone, but it just might be the most intriguing knock-off I’ve ever seen.
-Nokia FanBoy
via: Engadget (read)
source: M8Cool (read) [warning: non-english]
