Sciphone is a brand of mobile phones associated with a Chinese telecom company called Bluelans Communications which produces imitation mobile phones using the designs of major brands of mobile phones. These phones are usually low priced.

The phones are available throughout the Internet, on major websites such as eBay

EBay

eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

 and Alibaba, which are usually shipped from Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 or Mainland China, while some have been known to ship from Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

.

In addition to being available online, the phones can commonly be found in the Shanzhai

Shanzhai

Shanzhai refers to Chinese imitation and pirated brands and goods, particularly electronics. Literally "mountain village" or "mountain stronghold", the term refers to the mountain stockades of regional warlords or bandits, far away from official control...

 marketplaces in China.

The phones have found repute and intrigue in major technology blogs, such as Gizmodo

Gizmodo

Gizmodo is a technology weblog about consumer electronics. It is part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton and is known for its up-to-date coverage of the technology industry, along with topics as broad as design; architecture; space and science....

 and Engadget

Engadget

Engadget is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. Though on appearance Engadget functions much like a blog and may be defined as such, much of its editorial content takes the form of an online magazine...

, where they are usually labelled as KIRF or counterfeit.

The phones are usually found running a proprietary operating system, however many newer models, such as the Sciphone N12, N16, N17, N19 and N21, are running Android 1.5.

External links

• Official Bluelans Communications site
• Sciphone Reviews- News, information and reviews about Sciphone phones.