It's one thing to buy a Chinese impression of a Nokia candybar -- you know, something only the fanboys will notice as out of place. It's another to fool only yourself by opting for this over the real deal. The Vertu Ascent Ferrari clone operates on GSM networks and features a 1.8-inch 220 x 176 resolution display, USB connector, 128MB of internal storage, support for MP3 ringtones and MMS capabilities (take that, iPhone!). Excuse us, we're feeling a little sick from staring at this abomination...

Just last April, we heard that China Mobile had acquired more subscribers than the entire population of the United States of America. 15 months later, it has doubled up on that figure. Yep, China Mobile has just broken the 600 million subscriber mark as the country as a whole added 53.5 million new wireless users from January to June. Consequently, fixed-line customers fell by 9.3 million to 356 million during the same window of time. So, what's the over / under on months before the carrier breaks the big 1 billion?

[Via IntoMobile]

We only peeped the Linux-powered Motorola VE75 a short week ago and the good people at China's Zol.com.cn have already loaded their site to bursting with pics from every angle. While the site doesn't offer up anything new in the nitty-gritty detail department, it does include a handful of interface pics if you were left curious from our first mention. Release date is listed as mid-August for about 3000 Yuan -- or roughly $450.

Okay, it's not really a secret weapon, per se -- China Mobile's smack at the top of the Open Handset Alliance's member list, after all -- but In-Stat's predicting that Android has a chance of absolutely dominating the iPhone's sales figures next year if it can get a big ol' helping of love from China's hundreds of millions of wireless subscribers. Diving into the numbers, the analysis firm predicts that Apple will push some 9.5 million iPhones globally next year, compared to 17.1 million Android-equipped pieces, based largely on the assumption that China will end up throwing its weight behind the more open (read: cheaper) Linux-based platform. That being said, China Mobile is also still in discussions (as far as we can tell, anyway) to bring the iPhone to its network, so the battle could ultimately be about pricing and marketing. Google has done a solid job of building name recognition over there lately, and there's little doubt that manufacturers crafting Android sets will be able to undercut the iPhone, so In-Stat's little spat of fortune telling seems downright plausible.

Nothing says "I love you" like sending every single one of your hot new handset models your way, and that's pretty much the beautiful romance that's going on between Moto and China as of late. The A1600, A1800, and A810 have all induced various levels of lust from outsiders who can't get their paws on 'em (not yet, anyway), and now we've got another little bundle of Linux-powered joy to drool over, the VE75 slider. It'll happily swallow a pair of SIMs (as so many Asian market handsets tend to do) and offers EDGE data, a 2 megapixel camera, WQVGA display, and microSD slot. It'll be available -- and we use the term "available" loosely until a more global announcement is made -- in black and white.

[Via Unwired View]

This doesn't mark the first time (nor will it be the last) that we've seen a handset totally disregard the Mickey Mouse and / or Apple trademarks, but it's probably the only instance where both were violated on the same phone. We don't really know much about the mobile you see pictured above -- well, aside from the gratuitous use of big ears and well known fruit -- but it's probably worth hitting the read link for a couple more images alone.

[Via textually]

Man, waiting in line for the iPhone 3G can be a royal pain, right? Wouldn't it be nice if you could just circumvent the whole boring, sheep-like process and have one delivered to your doorstep? Well thanks to Alibaba.com and the weird and wacky copyright laws of Hong Kong, now you can! According to the wholesale goods supply site, you can just order up the "original" Apple device direct from a company called Union Camera and have them sent to whatever poorly lit dock, abandoned warehouse, or suburban safe-house you desire. The best part? They're network unlocked. You know, something seems wrong about this, but we just can't put our finger on it...

Update: As some commenters point out, it seems to be $1000 minimum order as opposed to 1000 pieces. Guess we'll just have to start the process and find out.

[Via PMP Today]

Not that we'd view the actual Touch Diamond as IF or anything, but the Diamond J6 is more along the lines of I3. In all seriousness, this thing isn't too far from being spot-on identical (maybe it's an HTC thing?), with a 2.8-inch display, built-in camera, multimedia player, Bluetooth and a microSD card slot. And for $160, we're almost inclined to fall in love here... almost.

Who would've thought that Nokia's first Series 40 dual slider would be for CDMA networks? Well, not so fast -- these two aren't exactly Series 40, it seems. Nokia hasn't announced either the 3608 flip or 8208 dual slider officially, but official specs and pictures have popped up on an Espoo-owned domain that reveal the China-bound handsets to operate on CDMA 800 / 1900, and in the case of the 8208, we can say with certainty that there's EV-DO Rev. A on board. Anyway, as we were saying, Nokia lists both as having "Series 40 Nokia like UIs," with "like" being the key word there; we suspect these are either still being manufactured for Nokia by a third party, Series 40 can't rock CDMA in its current incarnation, or a little bit of both. Trust us, though, Nokia -- that doesn't mean you shouldn't take these cute little guys global.

[Via MobileBurn, here and here]

Read - Nokia 3608
Read - Nokia 8208

On top of a piano, no less. China might be a bit late to the party by now, but they've sure got class. Taiwan retailer ePrice has unboxed a Chinese UI version of the iPhone for your viewing pleasure, and they even did a bit of Chinese handwriting recognition just for kicks. There's video as well (we embedded one after the break), so you really can't go wrong with this one, we promise.

The new A1600 and A1800 out of Moto's touchy MING series have already been fully outed, but it turns out Moto wants to bundle a third touchscreen Linux piece in there to make a complete set: the A810, which goes to retail without that MING name attached. In the press release, Motorola comes right out and calls it "entry-level" -- and considering that the 2 megapixel camera and polarizing styling fall well short of the more elegant, luxuriously appointed MINGs, that's no big shocker. It's available in black and white, features an integrated 3.5mm headphone jack, and is available now in Chinese retailers.

Word on the street has China's Huawei having selected the five finalists for bidding on a 50 percent stake of its mobile division, a stake that the company hopes will net a solid $2 billion based on a $4 billion valuation. All five of the remaining bidders are private equity firms, suggesting that unless they're concealing their interests through an intermediary, the plethora of carriers rumored to have an interest have all dropped out of the running (or never showed up to begin with). The contenders at this point include Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg Kravis Robers & Co., Silver Lake, and AEA Investors -- all companies we suspect would have no trouble cutting a $2 billion check that wasn't made out of rubber. Maybe we can settle this the old-fashioned way, with a potato sack race? Just a suggestion.

China Unicom aside, China Mobile is apparently still very interested in bringing the iPhone to mainland China -- and thanks to the return of the traditional revenue model for the iPhone 3G, balls are once again rolling to make that happen. China Mobile called the original iPhone's model the single biggest "hurdle" to sealing a deal, and at this point, only "practical" issues remain -- probably revolving around the fact that China has no WCDMA networks to speak of, if we had to guess, which would raise question about exactly how the iPhone 3G should be marketed there. For the time being, China Mobile says there's no schedule for bringing it to market -- and we know we can't rely on Apple for much guidance there until a deal actually happens -- so we'll just have to wait and see what those execs can get knocked out behind closed doors.

[Via Unwired View]

Fresh in the wake of China's massive wireless restructuring, execs are already on the offensive with fightin' words that suggest true, standards-based 4G could be coming sooner rather than later. Though he says EV-DO Rev. A is still in the cards for the short term, China Telecom's CEO says that GSM and CDMA networks alike will all converge to LTE in the country, thus signalling the abandonment of the CDMA-favored UMB migration path by yet another of the world's wireless juggernauts. All told, it's looking promising that the overwhelming majority of the world's countries will be on the same cellular technology page within the next decade or so -- but who would've thought the creator of TD-SCDMA would commit to being one of the first to flip the switch?

[Via IntoMobile]

Chalk this one up as just another rumor for now, but whispers around the Chinese web have it that China Unicom could be netting Apple's latest handset (yeah, that 3G one) this August. If you'll recall, Steve had issues in the past getting Chinese carriers to buy into his demanding revenue sharing model, but now that those days are gone, we suspect talks may go a little smoother. And c'mon, Apple didn't add in Chinese character recognition for kicks and giggles, now did it? As of now, China Mobile has yet to make a peep on the rumblings, but we've only got a few months before finding out either way.

[Via IntoMobile]