- Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others - Nietzche
Consumers warned against fake Nokia N95s
COPIES OF Nokia's successful N95 cameraphone have emerged with several purporting to be the latest (8GB) version of the handset.
One of the first counterfeit versions of the N95 to surface was being sold on Ebay by Gapcodist. He seems to be genuinely under the impression that he was selling the 'Asian' version of the N95.
One of the biggest clues to this handset being a fake is that it actually has a touchscreen interface.
A video of Gapcodist selling the counterfeit Nokia has been posted on Youtube here.
A more impressive video outlining the differences between the imitation Nokia N95s – which are believed to be originating in China - has been posted here.
The rip-off wouldn't be so obvious save for the fact that most of the desirable features of the N95 are missing as soon as you get it out of the fake packaging.
The differences include the fact that the camera is usually only 1.3 Megapixels or maybe two megapixels instead of the genuine five megapixels.
The GPS capability is also missing as is the Wi-fi capability and best-of-all, it's not even got the Symbian OS. Oh, and there's no 8 GB of storage.
But they do look very much like the originals, physically.
So if anybody offers you an N95 8GB for a lot less than the £370 a genine one should cost, don't buy until you can have a good look at it. µ
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My girlfriend bought one of these on eBay a while ago (some are identified as clones, this one wasn't). She complained through Pay Pall and they asked her to send the phone back to the seller. She sent the phone back but didn't get a refund. In the end she was only covered for £150 from Pay Pal and lost out on about £100. The seller ended up with the phone and my girlfriend’s money.

Buyer be aware.
unaware customers raped by untrustworthy reseller. news at 11.

"but it was on the internet, it should be true"
It had everything in it. Even bluetooth and an analog TV tuner but no Wi-Fi. It's really cheap cuz it was made by chinese ppl (Yeah, made in china. Cheap materials, cheap workforce etc). It's a fake one but works better than anything out there. Didn't buy it, feared it'd xplode in my hands. And no warranty :)
The battery goes where the camera is supposed to be.

Hold on, I was under the impression that intellectual property rights were a bad thing. 

I keep reading that IP Rights are bad, but proper enforcement of IP Rights would have saved a lot of people from these fake products.

Oh Wait, I've got it ... IP Rights are bad when it prevents you and me from stealing from companies, but IP Rights are good when it prevents companies from stealing from us or from other companies.

Right?
Although it looks vaguely like an N95 from the front, as soon as he starts turning it over and putting the battery in, etc, you see how poor the phone really is...

Plus in the video you never actually see him use the touch screen (or his face - odd that).

On a genuine N95 MicroSD goes in the side, it does not require removal of the battery. The 8gig has *NO* removable MicroSD, plus the phone is black, the screen slightly bigger and the controls smaller.

Power plug is on the bottom on a real one, not on the side.

Power button is on the top of a real one, not bottom right of the front keypad.

I'd be amazed if that thing can even actually make a phone call!