Fake Gadget Tuesdays: The HTC Magic runs Windows Mobile?

By Benedict Wee

Gadget: HTC G2 Running Windows Mobile

Place of Origin: China

"Inspired" by: The HTC Magic

Like the iPhone, when HTC announced their successor to the G1 and released pictures of the mobile, the copy masters over at China began their process of making a mold to make a fake version of the phone.

The phone was not named specifically in the beginning (it was first called Ion then it took them awhile to come up with Magic, then the US called it myTouch 3G), so everyone just called it the G2 to identify it as HTC's next Android running smartphone. The name stuck with the fake-phone makers and thus we get the HTC G2.

The G2 runs on a Huawei K3 460MHz processor with a Windows Mobile 6.1 OS, has EDGE (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) and that's all I know about this phone. Oh, it comes with a stylus.

You can tell the differences between this phone and the real thing. The most obvious ones being the lack of the Android-required buttons: Home, Menu, Back and Search and the missing trackball (it's replaced with a D-pad which looks like the rumored HTC Click's with a smaller middle). Subtle alterations are a smaller touchscreen with the 'htc' logo (which kinda looks like 'ntc') making up for the loss of screen space and the top speaker is only half complete. What? Did they poke holes and then gave up halfway?

What's pretty interesting about the mobile is the back carries a very familiar logo:

Yes, Vodafone. I guess the makers decided to put the telco's name since the HTC Magic was announced to be a Vodafone exclusive in the EU. Don't know what's up with the logo though, it's not a flame is it?

This phone has not been released yet so we've got no price tag but expect it to come in at around NZ$400 plus shipping. I will update this post as more information is released.

My arbitrary score for almost-the-real-thing-ness : 5/10

Gotta stand about 3 meters away for it to look real. Even then you shouldn't be waving it around.