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When we say “phony” we don’t mean the type that allows you to place mobile phone calls. Nope, not at all – we mean FAKE. Place the Tiger G3 right next to the HTC Hero and let us see what we have:

tigerg3

It even has the chin! But wait a minute? Fascinatingly enough, the cloning company doesn’t seem to have skimped when it comes to the OS:

This is not the case here with the Hero clone which is of course loaded with Google’s Android platform. Android is based on the Linux kernel and is developed by the Open Handset Alliance and licensed under the Open Source GPL v2 license. While this means it’s free for shanzhai manufacturers to use it’s really not as simple to deploy as you might first expect. Android is designed to work on the ARM processors that power our cell phones, but there are many other pieces to the puzzle that are needed to make it work. In fact it takes a fantastic deal of customization within the OS to get it implemented on any given ARM SOC, indeed these SOCs or System on Chips are seldom ever the same.

I’m assuming then that the TigerG3 and its Google Android OS is either the product of some really hard work to implement Android, or it uses the exact same processor platform that the original HTC Hero does. My money is on the latter scenario. But hey, if you have any insight, please chip in with a comment.

And furthermore, if you look at the specs you’ll notice they are kind of kick-butt considering the clone status:

  • Dual sim standby
  • Dual camera
  • Analog TV
  • FM Radio
  • Wi-Fi

Downfalls are that the camera is 1.3MP, memory is only internal memory is only 71.8MB and it only expands to a maximum 4GB exernal. I KNEW it sounded too excellent to be right. Plus take the fact that the Tiger G3 is a shameless clone and I can only guess that the performance is subpar at best. But coming in at only $140 we’re half tempted to try it just for the fun of it. Or maybe we’ll let you be the guinea pig and report back to us…

[Via Shanzai, thanks Pete!]

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