Mysterious 5" Android MID spotted on Shanzhai site

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Comments Posted on Aug 18, 2009 Posted by Song Jiang

SMiTandroidMID

Mysterious and illusive images of an Android MID have emerged over the last few days. Where these images originate from remains unclear, but it seems that I've unearthed a very similar design, found masquerading as a shanzhai MID device produced by a Shenzhen-based company called SMiT. The device itself is referred to as the MID-560. Is this our mystery MID? Let's take a closer look.

The MID-560 is a 5 inch touch screen (800 x 480) device that looks pretty similar in styling to an iPhone; silver-trimmed edge with a black border. It's powered by a Samsung 6410 mobile system-on-chip which integrates an ARM 11 chip with various application accelerators and connectivity support to produce a chip that is similar to those used in today's modern smart phones.

The application accelerators are included to allow a bit more bite in traditionally more processor intensive applications like video playback and java-based browser apps. The 6410 is good for standard definition or reasonably low bitrate and resolution playback of most standard video codecs including H.264, H.263. MPEG4 and VC1. So video playback should be half decent. Storage goes up to 8GB via T-flash. GPS module is standard.

Although the MID-560 runs Android, it has been optimized for the Chinese market and has support for CMMB mobile TV broadcast. That could however mean that this is running the modified OPhone OS - short for Open Mobile Phone Operating System - which has additional features build on top of Android, including Telephony, Native Java and of course CMMB / MobileTV support. I think this is probably the case.

Here some images of the mystrious Android running MID, originally published by pocketables.net:

AndroidMID1

AndroidMID2

AndroidMID3

Western Opportunity Analysis:

For Western markets of course Android is gathering momentum and is fast becoming a genuine player as a mobile operating system. Screen shots of our mystery MID appearing on Engadget and CrunchGear yesterday clearly show the device running Android, and while Google's mobile OS has gained ground in the smart phone segment, I have some reservations about its maturity in MID devices, particularly where video playback and browsing feel on this hardware. Could be good, I'd just rather wait and see.

Conclusions:

Comments abound regarding just how close this things looks to an iPhone, and how its basically a larger version of the iPhone sans phone hardware. Both Apple and TechCrunch are getting plenty of attention with their respective Tablet form factor designs, rumored or otherwise, and it will be interesting to see how those differ from this kind of MID device. Probably larger, thinner and x86-based is my guess..

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