iPhone look-a-like invites Apple lawsuit

Does the DaXian X999 handset remind you of anything?

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this swanky new handset coming out of China was 2007's 'Invention of the Year', the Apple iPhone - not the DaXian X999 as it is, in fact, called. The near-identical handset only operates in Chinese - aside from the start menu, which is in English -so it’s not relevant for any other markets, yet.

The dual-band DaXian X999 PDA phone features a 3.2-inch LCD touchscreen, Windows Mobile 6 Professional, a built-in Touch Flo-like 3D Cube menu interface, built-in Microsoft office apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and a 2-megapixel camera with macro feature, The Gadget Site reports.

Accelerometer

As with the iPhone, the screen is equipped with an automatic orientation sensor/accelerometer, allowing it to automatically rotate as you turn the phone on its side.

The Apple iPhone look-a-like comes with a 1GB Transflash/TF memory card plus 128MB of built-in RAM. It runs on a Texas Instruments OMAP850 200MHZ CPU, and sports Bluetooth, built-in Pocket PC and Java games. Battery life is said to be 4-6 hours’ talktime, with 150-340 hours of standby time.

We wonder how happy Steve Jobs and company will be about this new near-identical handset – a lawsuit for infringements of the Apple iPhone design is likely to be on the cards. We’ve contacted Apple for a comment and will update the story as soon as we hear back from them.

The DaXian X999 PDA phone is available now, priced at $346 (£177).