Where chinese knock-offs out-do Apple
Posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 5:41pm. #
While I was there, I visited the electronics market in Singapore, and a few other electronic stores. Notable was a total absence of DAB Digital Radio sets, despite DAB launching many years ago in Singapore (and despite the fact that it’s the only country with 100% coverage). That’s a concern.
I did buy something, though - something I discover is known as a “ChiPod”: a chinese imitation iPod Nano. This unbranded machine - above - looks a quite passable imitation, and it cost just £27. Inside, it has three games; a video player (playing the mysterious MTV ‘format’); an audio player that plays MP3s and even displays lyrics; an eBook reader (of which there is no documentation at all); a photo viewer; a voice recorder; and last, but not least, an FM radio.
The FM radio is there, of course, because there’s an FM radio on the chip that’s inside the device, and support for it is written into the software. It was, arguably, more work to disable it.
But it does pose the question: Why, in a £149 device like the iPod Nano, is there no FM radio - when this ChiPod managed to include one, and a mains charger too incidentally, for £27?
chris tomlinson said at January 14th, 2008 at 9:19am 
khepang said at March 2nd, 2008 at 3:14am 
