A top Shanghai school has been given the green light to initiate the city's first two all-boys classes as the new school year begins this September. The pilot programme was designed ostensibly to tackle a 'masculinity crisis' in mainland education and will involve survival training as well as playing with and repairing digital gadgets. Other lesson suggestions (which may or may not have come from ourselves) include shed ownership and penis helicoptering. more ›

We told you earlier today how the iPhone 4S release was halted in Beijing after scalper scuffles. Now watch the store get pelted with eggs. Hilarious. Watch the report from Reuters after the jump... more ›

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How many of these people do you reckon are queueing up for phones destined for the black market on the mainland? more ›

'Today we have got two from Canada, they're 11,000 yuan (S$2,183) each. If you're interested, you need to come straight away,' a salesman at a mobile phone shop at Hailong market told AFP. She said it was a 16GB model, the least expensive in the range. In the United States, the same phone is sold for US$199 (S$252) with a two-year contract. more ›

With the iPhone 4S being released today, it's only a matter of time before the first arrive on China's gray market, where Chinese will rush to bask in Apple's latest creation. However, those early adopters with sub-par English skills may not be as enthusiastic after having a few minutes to play around with Apple's newest gem, Siri. more ›

Gang Lu of TechNode points us to a unique little innovation developed by China Unicom that he says the provider is selling "under the table". The device basically allows China Mobile users to use China Unicom's 3G network which makes sense since China Mobile has better mobile coverage while Unicom remains the better 3G provider. Here's how it works:

Basically, you just attach that film sticker (card) on your China Mobile sim card, then insert it back to your phone. What happens is that you can still make/receive the call, send/receive sms message etc using China Mobile service, but in the meanwhile, you can also surf the internet using China Unicom’s 3G network. As we said before, it is pre-paid data card which means you can just do top-up when the credits run out. It’s so impressive, and I bet China Mobile will get pissed off by this innovative product.

Now here's a smart little idea by a Chinese guy that hasn't become a real product yet but remains in its conceptual stage -- a physical keyboard for the iPhone. Before you go scoffing at the idea, there are actually many people with fat fingers out there who never quite manage to type right on the iPhone. more ›

We have no idea how Chinese telecoms giant Huawei intends to conquer the world with this new advertisement, but from the looks of it, they really might as well rename their new tablet LamePad. Fortunately for them, though, they had the intelligence not to go down the way of Acer's by going head on with the iPad. It would have been a complete disaster: more ›

With no open operating system, no high resolution display, no Dolby Surround Sound, no Flash, no microSD, no USB port, why the hell would you want an iPad? That's the question Taiwanese electronics giant Acer is asking consumers in a campaign for its newly released tablet, the Iconia Tab A500 -- which we're happy to report is quite a decent tablet after we tried it hands-on at a store recently at MetroCity. The below ad, from Taiwan, features two men in a , or crosstalk, trying to convince you that Acer is the better choice. more ›

It looks like an iPhone, feels like an iPhone, and it even appears to have the iOS. Introducing the GooApple, the shanzhai phone that's a complete rip-off of the iPhone 4, except that it runs on Android 2.2. And if the English-language demo below (yeah, shanzhai-makers are seriously upping their game these days) is to be trusted, it seems to run really well too. Unfortunately we weren't able to find any prices on the GooApple website which is now accepting pre-orders, but if prices on Taobao are any indication, older GooApple models are going for between RMB1060 and RMB1430. more ›

Why wait for the launch of the iPad 3 when you can build it yourself? This guy shows us the ultimate in DIY shanzhai: Watch him painstakingly saw, file, screw, mount the motherboard, put together the other parts of his home-made tablet, install Windows XP (*gasp*), and lovingly apply his finishing touch with an Apple logo sticker! The end-product really doesn't look too bad at all for a homemade gadget made in just two weeks -- it's got a touchscreen, keyboard and a nice case to go along with it. We'd be happy to buy it off this guy -- provided he can stick in some other operating system that's not the XP! more ›

You've seen Yosion's Apple Peel, the wonderful device that turns your iPod Touch into an iPhone. But now here's a similar gadget by another maker, Xun Ying Tech, which allows your iPhone 4 to take up to three SIM cards. Just the tool you'll need if each of your schizophrenic personalities requires its own mobile number! The gadget is retailing online for RMB799.
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GadgetsRepublic gives us an update on Yosion's Apple Peel 520, the amazing device that transforms your iPod into an iPhone:"The first generation Apple Peel 520 won us over the with the ability to transform your iTouch in to an iPhone, but one thing was missing, mobile internet. The engineers at Yosion have remedied this and a few other issues, and the the latest generation allows you to connect to the web via a 3G network. Best of all the new Peel can be used as a mobile hotspot, allowing you to connect up to 2 more devices to your 3G network. Other awesome added features include a vibration motor *sweeet* and Caller ID and FM Radio. It looks we can expect a late March release of the 2nd generation Apple Peel 520 according to Yosion, but I have no idea how long it will take for these devices to make their way West (ie: Europe, and the US). The price doesn’t seem to be set in stone, but it seems like we’re looking at a RMB 598 price tag (~US$ 91) for the release." more ›

Love your Kindle but wish it came in color? Then we have good news for you. Hanvon, the largest maker of e-reading devices in China, unveiled it's latest design yesterday--an electronic reader with a color E Ink display. more ›

In the event that you don't feel like forking over the money for a vpn to skip around the pesky censors, you may want to wrangle a Kindle 3G off a friend/kind stranger because a few giddy net users have discovered that Amazon's reading device is able to access banned sites in China without a problem. more ›

If a Hello Kitty phone cover just isn't enough (and how could it be?), here's a new phone that will bring you closer than ever to the salutational cat. That's right. A Hello Kitty that pops open into a cell phone. It's practically a transformer. more ›

PR practitioners need to watch this. At the recent launch of Chinese manufacturer Hanvon's (汉王) very own TouchPad, which they hope to be the next iPad-killer, senior executives were invited on stage to smash an effigy of Apple made out of ice. When asked by the emcee how they felt afterwards, one of them replied in a most nonchalant manner, "I never thought it'd be this easy to smash Apple!" 没想到砸苹果还那么轻松啊！ more ›

Man! Would you just take a look at what we found on our favourite blog for shanzhai gadgets? Shanzhaipads! They had to come out sooner or later! Tell us -- should we choose the Eken M003 iPad-lookalike on the left? Or the smaller SmartQ MID V7 on the right which allows us to run Windows, Linux and Android? More importantly, which of these shanzhaipads do you think will allow us to do this?
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Do you need a better reason to get the iPad? more ›

Since we broke the story of the "pre-emptive cloning" of the iPad (and here's another story of the same device back in Oct 2009) by Chinese company Shenzhen Great Long Brother Industrial Co., Wu Xiaolong, the president of the company has been an angry man. Earlier today, he fumed to our friend Aritz Parra of El Mundo, charging that Apple has not only replicated the design of its multi-touch tablet, but also the device support and the sleeve. They're , he says. more ›

Talk about preemptive cloning! While the world is swooning over Apple's announcement (that was, granted, completely expected) about it's new toy - the iPad, Chinese copycatters have already come out with their shanzhai versions... three months ago. more ›

Sometimes your new electronic gadget isn't as new as you'd think it would be. One patron of the Carrefour in Jinqiao got a bit of a shock when he opened his “brand new” camcorder and found over 30 minutes of the Jinqiao Carrefour staff's Spring Festival Christmas party on it. Source:Jonathan Chambers more ›

With Christmas right around the corner, many of you will be looking for gifts for that special princess (or queen) in your life. more ›

2009 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for China's mobile market. All that excitement over Google's Android phone is finally making its way to China. On the right you see a sleek new gadget codenamed "OPhone" that is making its rounds on gadget forums lately. Said to be a joint effort between Lenovo and China Mobile, this is the first in a series of phones that will be "based on China Mobile's OMS (Open Mobile System) which is essentially Android + TD SCDMA (China's home-grown 3G standard)." ITProPortal says the phone is expected to debut sometime in February or March. more ›

Finally after much hype and news, the Meizu M8 is due for release on December 8th. The guys from PC Online have had the chance to test it against the iPod Touch (because iPhones are not legally available in China yet). more ›

Steven Lin of Youku Buzz informs us:

It’s rumored that the Meizu M8 will be on the shelf later this month with a 3.3 inch 720×480 touch screen (much higher than iPhone’s 480×320) and compatibility with most mainstream multimedia formats you can find online (who needs Apple’s iTunes Store any more?). And my friend from Engadget China told me, the price would be RMB 2300 (USD 335).

If there's one business model that's sure to ride the current economic storm, it's a shop which sells nothing but useless gadgets. more ›

Rumours have already started circulating that China Mobile will be the carrier to introduce the HTC G1 Android phone to China. Launched last Tuesday by T-Mobile in the States, this phone is the first device to run on the Google develop platform Android. more ›

This one's for all you fans of Chinese counterfeits gadget freaks. From Engadget.com:

After what feels like centuries of waiting (and suffering through that painful CeBIT demo), we finally get to see the Meizu M8's OS in action... and it's not as bad as you think. Sure, the interface is totally derivative of the iPhone, and there is that pesky cursor floating around, but all-in-all it looks like the company has managed to knock out a decent -- if incredibly familiar -- UI for its long-delayed phone. Still, there's some low rent hilarity in this video. Our favorites? The smattering of soft porn pictures and video, and Meizu CEO and all-around bon vivant Jack Wong revealed in a reflection...