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HiPhone, the Chinese iPhone

I am a big Nokia fan, and for that reason I did not buy an iPhone, but stayed with my Nokia E61i. Probably a good idea, because an iPhone is nothing special anymore in China with a rumored 400,000 iPhone users (I actually do not believe that number, it must be much less, and it’s likely a part of China Mobile’s negotiation strategy with Apple). But when I saw that a Chinese company came up with the HiPhone, an iPod clone for about RMB 1000 (EUR 100) I decided to order one just for fun.


Today the phone was delivered and I took pictures during the unpacking process. They can be found here as a set on Flickr. My first impression is that the design is remarkably the same. Not only the phone itself, but even the box the phone comes in. The phone seems to be a bit thicker, but when it’s turned off it looks almost the same. Once you turn it on the opening screen is exactly the same as the iPhone (the picture of the earth was copied), but when you come to the main menu you immediately see this is a copy. The buttons just don’t look as sleek as the original iPhone ones.

The phone is a bit lighter than the iPhone, because it’s completely made out of plastic. It has a touchscreen like the iPod and that works well. If you change the direction of the phone, the picture will also change its direction. And you are even able to zoom in and out with two fingers. It’s not as smooth as the iPhone, but it works.


The phone has a dual sim card, which is quite useful for me when I am travelling. I did not try it out yet, but if it works its a great feature. The phone comes standard with two batteries, and it has an mini SD card slot (I bought an additional 2 GB card, the standard memory is only 512 MB). Furthermore it has a camera and video camera, quality is better than expected for such a cheap phone. MP3 audio also works fine, although the quality of the speaker could be better.

But of course for EUR 100 you don’t get a 100% copy of an iPhone. I tried to get the internet to work, but am only able to get onto WAP sites. It seems that the phone does not support internet… Not a good thing for an iPhone copy! Also there is no wifi or 3G as far as I can tell, only GPRS. Fine for China as long as there is no 3G anyway. The font used in the HiPhone is plain ugly, and I don’t think you can change it.

All in all a nice gimmick. For EUR 100 you get a camera, MP3 player and a good phone in one, in a nicely copied design. I will use it occasionally for business trips, but my main phone will surely stay the Nokia. The best thing about the phone is the text on the box and on the back side of the phone: “HiPhone – Innovation changes the future”. It seems the manufacturer is not only good at copying, but also has humor!

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  1. Thanks for the review, Marc, but I’d better try out the Amoi E78, a little QWERTY instead which is also very cheap.

    After all, this HiPhone doesn’t sound too interesting instead of its “good” look. If it looks something else instead of an iPhone look, I’m sure it’ll cost even cheaper!

    Nevertheless, it’s still fun to own a fake iPhone and tell your friends about it 🙂

    Reminds me of the early days when Japanese were also good at copying American electronics!

  2. [found this page through shanghaiist.com]

    It looks interesting, and worth it for the money, but no wi-fi kind of takes away the only reason I’d really care about having an iphone!

  3. True, no wifi is not the best thing for an iPhone wannabe. I see it more as a nice iPod with built in (video)camera that can also be used to make phone calls.

    My Nokia E61i (with wifi) will stay my main phone.

  4. hi marc,

    i’m currently in shanghai for business, and wanted to pick up a HiPhone for my dad back in the states. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you get yours?

  5. I bought it on Taobao.com, you normally get it in 2-3 days.

  6. hi marc,

    i was wondering whether i can order hiphone from the website you mentioned above if i live in europe?
    it’s the first time i’ve come across that website, and don’t understand a word it says 🙂

    thank you in advance

  7. @ena Depends on whether the seller wants to ship it to Europe. But if you don’t read Chinese you may have a hard time communicating with the seller:)

  8. i’m sorry to bother you again, but I managed to buy hiphone here in my country, but the only on I could find is without any drivers…

    so I was wondering can you help me somehow with finding the drivers, since you probably got the disc with your phone 🙂

    sorry again for boring you
    thank you so much

  9. @ena I don’t have the phone anymore, did not use it very long and replaced it with a real iPhone after a few weeks. So am afraid I cannot help you… By the way, I don’t recall installing any drivers, it went all automatically – plug and play. But if you really need them they should be available on the internet as a download as well.