JiaYu G4 launch: what are they waiting for?

The JiaYu G4 has been spotted as a working engineering prototype from as early as the end of 2012. Now 4 months on the flagship phone still hasn't launched! So what are JiaYu waiting for?

Rumours and news reports claim that JiaYu will launch the JiaYu G4 during April 2013, but word from our sources at JiaYu and their official forum doesn't look all that promising, and we can't help but to think back to this time last year and the JiaYu G3 launch!

Even without an official launch date or confirmed pricing some online resellers have already started to accept orders for the quad-core G4, orders which are likely to go unfilled for some time until JiaYu get production levels up to speed!

But, before they do that there are a number of things JiaYu needs to do before they can even think about putting it on the market!

Although many companies and resellers are attempting to tell us that there is no issue with running the Mediatek MT6589 CPU with 2GB RAM, they are wrong and a problem does exist! Umi have had to delay production of the X2, and iOcean have only launched a 1GB version of the X7 due to the issue.

Of course this doesn't prevent JiaYu from putting the youth version of the JiaYu G4 on sale with only 1GB RAM, but there is another issue which does.

To legally sell a phone in China, the manufacturer must receive a network license from an official governing body. The process is similar to FCC filings, and can be a long drawn out process.

The fact that we haven't seen evidence of the G4 network license means we could be at least 1 month away from seeing the phone in stores!

Before JiaYu can send the new phone to receive a network license they must settle on a final specification, and they don't appear to have done this yet. Just last week the official JiaYu forums had a poll asking which specification fans would like to see, and today we received news of further changes and updates to the G4 phone!

As it's plain to see that the specification of the G4 isn't set in stone, this bring us to another issue.

With all the changes JiaYu are making and the fact they still haven't decided on a firm spec, will mean that they haven't confirmed orders with suppliers, and may not have a secure supply chain for parts such as the display, battery and camera and other major components!

Worse still is that the longer they delay the more companies launch similar phones using the same quad-core MT6589 chip, a component already in high demand and one which many companies are struggling to secure!

We know it's not easy JiaYu, but if you want a successful product and to have huge sales then you are going to need to get the JiaYu G4 on the market sooner rather than later or your rivals will be eating your piece of the pie!