Nubia might not get as much media attention as Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo or even Meizu, but they can kick up a real fuss when they choose too.
A few years back Meizu had a ‘halo’ home button on their phones which was an integral part of the design and made Flyme the ROM that people either loved or hated.
The halo home button was a light ring that would pulse with notifications and would act as a home or back button depending on the gesture the user chose.
Meizu stopped using the halo after the launches of the MX4, M1 and M1 Note with no official reason, but at the time it was rumoured that ZTE’s Nubia smartphone company had sued Meizu for the use of the same home button design as their phones.
With one (possible) victory under their belt, Nubia might now be after Chinese phone start-up 360, but in this case the design and inspiration from Nubia is way more obvious.
Gizchina News of the week
The latest 360 devices feature the same red ring, and red icons as Nubia phones and Nubia are not pleased about it, with one of the Nubia bosses stating that “war” is on the cards, and legal proceedings will begin shortly!
It will be interesting to see the outcome of this latest battle, and what effect it might have on 360’s range of phones in the near future. Keep posted for more news.
I still really miss the halo from the older Meizu’s, though. In my opinion it looked much nicer on theirs than the red of the Nubias. I still see people walking around Hangzhou with older models and I’ll just catch that gentle pulsing light and wish they still could use it. The mBack stuff is fine, really, but the older Meizu’s just had that little bit more character to them in that way.
Hilarious that you report about patenting a circle but you don’t mention that the 360 N4 was launched today. It is the best value launch this year, so far.
899CNY (138$) – 5.5 inch 1080p , Helio X20 ( lower clocked MT6797m at just 2GHz not 2.3GHz) , 4GB RAM, 32GB NAND and microSD , 13MPand 5MP cams, 3080mAh with fast charging, fingerprint ,might be but not sure dust and water resistant IP67 , 149 × 75.7 × 8.35 mm , 140 grams
The SoC is listed at 2x 2.0GHz + 4x 1.9GHz + 4x 1.4GHz and the GPU at 700MHz
Comes in white, red and yellow.
Official page http://www.360shouji.com/zt/n4/index.html
http://img1.mydrivers.com/img/20160509/0f99a5ace3b442a1a038c4bc7c46b301.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj6Z0vzw4QU
Are there any signs of WCDMA and FDD LTE bands for Europe ?
Maybe they don’t do some-affiliate-thing with 360.
If Nubia are a$$holes about it then I say good luck to the 360 N4! I’d like to see 360 win!
How far can you go patenting a f#cking red circle!?
Actually the Nubia Z9 bordeless phone is one of the best designed phones in my opinion, and the red ring that also functions as a notification is very nice.
Man, to patent a circle!!! For crying out loud…!!!
Sometimes, some people and companies…. Sad.
It’s not the circle that is patented, it is the light up ring around the home button.
P7000 from crap ELEPHONE had the same thing,,, never heard of them picking on those…
That’s because it’s Elephone. Smaller companies can get away with a lot more because there is no real incentive for the larger companies to sue. The legal costs alone would be more than any award they do or don’t get. 360/Qihoo on the other hand is a company with billions of dollars in revenue.
Looks like Nubia is the new Apple. Equally “wise” are people who granted the patent. Sigh!
shit! i love that circle on mx4!
FYI, Absolutely detest 360 products, laggy software, full of bloat.