Viewsonic’s Viewpad4 was announced last year. Viewpad4 has a 4.1 inch touch screen, 1 GHz Qualcomm processor, 5 megapixel camera, front-facing VGA camera and other basic connectivity options including HDMI.
Fast forward to Feb 9, 2011, Olive Telecom has launched its Android phone calledOliveSmart. The specs on OliveSmart are 4.1 inch touch screen, 1 GHz Qualcomm processor, 5 megapixel camera, front-facing VGA camera and other basic connectivity options including HDMI. Don’t scroll back, they are just the same specs of Viewpad4. Viewpad4 looks like a brick and so does OliveSmart. Viewpad4 and OliveSmart look the same. Almost.
I couldn’t get the thickness and other dimensions of Viewpad4 to nail this down. The only glaring difference between OliveSmart and Viewpad4 is HSPA. OliveSmart promises HSPA+ speeds and Viewpad4 has HSDPA speeds.
OliveSmart could as well be Viewpad4 with some minor hardware differences. There’s nothing wrong with rebranding devices which were launched elsewhere. In fact, most of the devices we see from Indian manufacturers are re-branded devices. Micromax A60 for example, is a re-branded ZTE Penguin. Videocon’s latest Android device looks like a re-branded ZTE device too.
I can see why Indian manufacturers try to re-brand a popular model. There isn’t just no time for innovation. Take what’s out there, re-brand it, and price it right. This seems to be the general philosophy. At some point, this has to slow down and original designs have to pick up. Copying and manufacturing devices seems to be the next logical step for the young Indian manufacturers. They just have to look at China’s Meizu and repeat it. Innovation might just follow.
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