No, what you see above are not two accidentally repeated images of the same phone. Actually, Meizu revealed some new renderings of the miniOne iPhone clone (formerly the Meizu M8) that look hardly different from the old ones.
Maybe Meizu is trying to get past Apple lawyers, who will have to strain their eyes to see the difference between the old and the new Meizu miniOne.
Do you share my sentiment that this barely qualifies as a non-iPhone-knockoff? Because the people over at the Meizu Me forums seem delusional to me.
One poster says: “Looks like a m8 to me not an iphone… if it looked like an iphone it would have an apple on the back.” Sure, I guess (is he nuts!?).
Here are a couple more before/after images. Let me know how long it takes you to spot the dissimilarities.
Meizu M8 Before:
Meizu M8 After:
… via Engadget.
Agreed, Andrew. Thanks for your comment.
Speaking as a designer there are lots of options for the look of a full-screen, touch-screen based phone that looks little like the iPhone. The position of the icons bar (bottom), the materials and colours used (chrome, black) the treatment of the edges, microphone position, etc. The position of the speaker is probably pretty necessary and the buttons on the sides probably wouldn’t work so well anywhere else. This still looks like a copy-cat product.