China’s cloning industry is as entrenched and as widespread as it is ubiquitous, and has reached a scale so vast that entire factories are being cloned down to the last nut and bolt from stolen blueprints so these can reproduce exactly what the original factory was manufacturing, reports popsci.com. How’s that for piracy?

One of their more interesting “products” is Meizu M8 MiniOne, which is for almost all intents and purposes, the Chinese version of the iPhone. The M8, like the iPhone, also comes in 4- or 8GB versions, with or without a camera, and runs off an ARM processor, but this phone runs off Windows instead of OS X. The features mimic (albeit poorly and incompletely) Apple’s unit but, unlike Apple’s iPhone, at least it runs anywhere in the world.

The screen resolution is 480 x 720, 3.3″ 24-bit display. The physical dimensions of the Chinese iPhone is 10.5″ x 5.7″ x 1.2″. The various models cost from US$200 to US$400, a clear case of getting what you pay for. Me, I’ll think I’ll wait.

(Cross-posted from Mobile Philippines.)