Don’t buy this scam iPhone

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We bought a fake iPhone to see how close to the real thing it could be. Well... close isn't the word.
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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
0:42 Unboxing & First Impressions
3:25 Thanks Certo!
3:59 Amazing Specs
4:30 Connectivity
5:30 Apps and OS
6:26 Device Testing
7:28 Hacking for the TRUTH
9:35 Teardown to Battery
10:13 Competitors

[@JohnADoe-pg1qk]

It's a three-fold scam: first, it's not an iPhone, second, it claims to have much better hardware than it actually has, and third, this hardware and software doesn't even work reliably.

[@FlyingCIRCU175]

which is a crying shame because it has features not even the iPhone has. /s

[@alieffauzanrizky7202]

And the sad thing is there's a lot of fake iPhones that's super close to the original, both on exterior and custom android OS. Except it comes with dual core 1.6Ghz processor and 2GB of ram. While mostly it's sold for prop use or stripped down the inside and make it a dummy display, some people sadly sold it to scam people. And worse, the phone is extremely unusable for daily tasks that it's basically e-waste

[@Majso]

Honestly at this point I’m wondering why even go through the trouble to manufacture the phone and ship it, why not just keep the money and ghost the customer. Seems like a whole lot of hassle even for the seller when the product is so shitty. Only reason I can come up with is that it is for the lolz

[@kornkernel2232]

And its literally around 300 dollars, seriously so many brand new and used phones are much better than this and many can get even cheaper and infinite better than this. Can get a genuine old iPhone 12 for the same price.

[@NCHLTII]

I almost had a heart attack until I saw the s. The amount of people saying the fakes are better because headphone jack is insane! People shouldn't be buying fake iPhones if they don't have money, a used Samsung S series should absolutely suit the need of most people for the same price. Older S series have headphone ports too, but with far more modern software and hardware (these fake phones are 32 bit with 1 GB of ram and usually come with android 5 or 6, 8 go edition if you're lucky)@@FlyingCIRCU175

[@DanielMether]

The worst part of fake iPhones is that they often aren't even good Android phones.

[@pedroalbuquerquebs]

All the budget went into faking the external look.

[@ChannelThing69]

We need a stretched photo of Jonathan like the Linus meme

[@definitelynotobama6851]

But tall

[@MorganTheGorgon]

Longathan?

[@KingEurope1]

I really hope they don't start doing stuff like that. Mac Address is LMG's crown jewel precisely because it's not a channel full of obnoxious memes, whole video long advertisements, and clickbait.

[@JasonEfstathiou]

​@@KingEurope1 🤓

[@123mrflibble]

The long John

[@Naviss]

Just as everyone expected this to turn out.

[@Photo0021]

This phone acts like how some iPhone users think Android is like

[@rob2257]

I remember when Android DID run like that and it was considered borderline “tolerable”. 😂

[@Photo0021]

@rob2257 Lol true that, at least on cheaper models back in the day, or a lot of Android tablets, it was pitiful in retrospective.

[@racerex340]

The crazy thing is that the sp7731gea processor/SOC found in this phone is such a toilet that it scores 320 single-core and 999 multi-core in Geekbench 3, the Qualcomm SnapDragon W5+ Gen 1 quad-core SOC in the Pixel Watch 2 scores 745 single-core and 1480 multi-core on the much more demanding Geekbench 4.4, so it's like 50% slower than a modern smart watch. A better comparison would be to a similarly priced new Google Pixel 6 with the Google Tensor G1 Geekbench 6 single-core score of 1373 and multi-core score of 3149, easily purchased new for less than this piece of garbage, and that's with 8 times the RAM and 8 times the storage. Both my refrigerator and my smart thermostat have more powerful SOCs than this phone. The people selling this marketed as and hacked into such an extreme lie in specs deserve a special place in hell, only after having their naughty bits sawed off with a rusty spoon and fed to them.

[@bibasik7]

This is how Android Smart TVs from just a few years ago run.

[@Anankin12]

​@@bibasik7this is how any smart tv will run in a few years time, which is why I hate I can't get a NON smart TV. Let me add the brain to the thing so that I can get actually usable stuff and I can upgrade it as needed.

[@shanmango]

1:56 wow I was not expecting Miniskirt to be playing in an LMG video 😅

[@MStrong95]

Recently was gifted a "refurbished" iPad for Christmas and since it wasn't working that great, I tried to return it but Amazon says it's not a genuine iPad

[@lorelailuthorkar-el137]

The gifter should've bought directly from apple's refurbished store instead of amazon because usually it isn't really amazon who provides the item. The companies usually just use the site to sell stuff

[@alifputra7369]

Two Mac Address videos in a month, incredible stuff. Can’t wait for M3 chip comparison part 2.

[@Jivolt]

A fake Chinese phone LIED about specs!? SHOCKED!!!

[@arkvsi8142]

the actual problem is not it being chinese, the problem is that people buy it

[@kornkernel2232]

@@arkvsi8142 Yep, and $300 at that. If people want to buy iPhone, there is literally plenty of few gen old ones available.

[@xIJudaS]

@@arkvsi8142 "fake chinese"

[@ToppyTree]

Potentially pretty dirty to name drop Pegasus in the ad when, as far as I can tell, Certo doesn't claim to be able to detect it

[@scsextra]

Just gonna tag @GamersNexus now. 😂

[@william8217]

Yeah that’s rough. Someone who may be a target really needs to be using the built in lock down mode, not some sketchy scanner.

[@vadnegru]

Realistically, any malware would have bad time working on this trash

[@JuanFmTech]

Ad: Don’t want sketchy intrusive apps in your phone? Try cleaning it with our sketchy intrusive scanner

[@atamosina]

Please don't take this as a criticism but really I enjoy watching MA, but lately I began to notice that content became uninspired somehow and I don't want to say shallow but without a sense of a deep dive. And the point is not that you are not deep diving into this particular model this part you did very well. Fake iPhones is such a vast topic and This Video could be a middle of the Topic Where I think You Need to begin with some context. There are models that totally imitate iPhone to The Last Detail of unboxing and packaging experience there are models that don't even try, and there is a different approach to just imitating the outside body or one that are trying to imitate software Experience. Sorry for my English.

[@JuanFmTech]

totally agree, this is the worst fake ever and they could have taken the video to actually help some people spot good fakes

[@clebbington]

You are correct, this video doesn't feel comprehensive about the topic of iphone fakes. As other commenters have said, some fakes even have real salvaged iphone internals from older models, so they run actual iOS

[@TravisBasson]

And filmed ages ago, still has his old iMac and the phone showed September. Definitely pulled it out the recycle bin to meet a sponsor deadline

[@xelaander8429]

​@@clebbington wait they really do this now? That's serious

[@PowerRenG3]

"fakes" literally iPhone XR with faked cameras and the old notch@@clebbington less fakes and more of just. straight up a scam

[@FLAXMS]

I remember seeing some fake iphones on wish where they had some kind of midrange snapdragon soc and like android 10 with an ios skin. That could actually fool some unlucky misinformed elderly people 😢

[@heyjustj]

So bad… I remember someone giving me a “large” capacity USB drive back in the day. It would show up as 16GB or whatever and act like it was writing all the files to it even taking the full time. Then when you went to plug into a different machine and retrieve the files they either weren’t there or were all corrupted. Finally after testing what file sizes I COULD get to work we found that instead of 16GB it was 16MB. This person lost important files because they thought they saved. So shady when people masks all the specs to show up as something different. And to think it might cost them about the same or just a little more to put the real specs in it rather than all the trouble to spoof the hardware.

[@histerical90]

I saw a different "clone" recently, but that was an iPhone XR conversion, so it had the internals and actual iOS just the case was changed to one with 2 additional fake cameras to look like a new iPhone.

[@AdmiralulNipples]

well thats for someone who would buy a chrysler 300 cause they cant afford a rolls royce. it looks expensive, so people would assume you are rich...

[@clebbington]

@@AdmiralulNipplesno actually I think they're used to scam people into thinking they're new phones

[@TeleviseGuy]

High Digital Camera? No thanks, I prefer my cameras sober.

[@ronikverma2246]

Love Mac Address! Please keep releasing more vids. Waiting for Apple Vision Pro from Mac Address!!

[@tpgggg]

I was not expecting the Miniskirt jumpscare

[@ejsdbsh]

Not Horst listening to Miniskirt by AOA omg

[@HansGats]

Didn't expect to hear "Like A Cat" by AOA in this video but I am glad I did.

[@y_0_1_0]

Its Miniskirt.

[@HansGats]

@@y_0_1_0 oh. My bad. 😅

[@bibasik7]

An iPhone 2G would be significantly more useful than this piece of junk. Neither of then are usable as a phone or an internet communicator, but at least the iPhone 2G still functions as an iPod (and it charges!).

[@Abel_DG]

And that’s a true status symbol

[@PennTech226]

You know it's a good day when Mac Address uploads

[@marklamutt]

Was hoping for Part 2 today. Oh well, hopefully next week!

[@zdanee]

There is another trend where they get old but real iPhone XR-s, gut them and put them in an aftermarket housing that looks like an iPhone 15. The mainboard, screen, battery, buttons are all from the original resurrected iPhone XR, and because of the difference in size it has huge bezels, but as an actual iPhone it does run iOS and all.

[@voltare2amstereo]

And the spyware they come loaded with.

[@JuanFmTech]

"We bought the fakest iPhone fake we could fake i mean find"

[@DrewColpurs]

I remember way back in the day, like 2013ish, scam Apple products were all over the place and I'd watch videos of people pointing out all the little inconsistencies in the packaging and the hardware, very similar to this video and this crappy phone.

[@WilliamHaisch]

1:46 These are the hoof prints of the knockoff smartphone cargo cult. 😂

[@kthmtchll]

to reveal battery capacity, most any usb voltage meter will show you mAh charged. you could just drain it then charge it while measuring. cheers!

[@JuanFmTech]

Yeah having a entire labs team and not being able to find the mah was kinda weird, even more was opening the phone to see the mah printed or battery model number expexting a fake phone would have accurate specs printed lol

[@jameshodgetts7541]

although a decent sized resistor in series with it would increase the mAh you need to put into it, thus making it look bigger than it is. it might be such a shitty fake that they don't go to that extreme to fake it for testing purposes like that, but measuring current in isn't a direct measure of battery capacity.

[@watercannonscollaboration2281]

I remember buying one of those knockoff airpods that had the “pair when flipped open” feature, they were only $20 and the quality was actually pretty good and it was pretty convincing

[@hivetyrant7]

This is sad to me in a very different way. Back in the early 2010's there were so many Apple style knock off devices that were actually incredible value for money, things like ipad looking tablets with the same screens as genuine apple tablets but with x86 internals so they ran windows, you got so much power for your money but these days it's all just fake stuff.

[@inflatablemaster9898]

It’s called the ✨ Dynamic Notch ✨ 🤣

[@katanaboy4]

Where did Jonathan get that hoodie from? It looks good!

[@BenjaminLee2009]

At 2:13, he said "this is infuriating" I'm not lying. Literally the nano second right after he said that an ad popped up. Was this done on purpose lmao 😅😅😅

[@MrJmanrey]

You really can just slap android on to anything.

[@DomitionX]

It's the Doom of operating systems

[@clebbington]

yeah mang it's open source! but 1gb of ram just can't handle modern android apps at all. when the phone runs out of memory it will use the storage as virtual memory and cheaper devices usually also have super slow emmc chips for storage. if you're ever buying anything running android make sure it has at least 2gb of ram if you don't want to pull your hair out

[@FireAngelOfLondon]

I once bought a supposed Nokia battery replacement for my old phone from Amazon - note this was from Amazon and not an independent seller using the Amazon site. It was fake, it charged up once and would not charge again, was not made by Nokia even though Amazon advertised it as a genuine Nokia battery, and yes, I sent it back. They did not argue about the refund which was good because I was prepared to take them to a UK small claims court if necessary. I was happy with those old dumb phones though I would not go back to one now I am used to my iPhone.

[@cenata]

This is a progress. These fake "put known brand here" phones used to come with half the menues in Chinese without possibility to change it.

[@calebj2886]

loved the miniskirt by AOA moment

[@ziritrion]

A Spreadtrum SoC means it's a really old SoC too, because Spreadtrum renamed to Unisoc around 2019 or so. I had the misfortune of working on some products running those PoS SoCs and boy, what a bunch of e-waste.

[@Malsher]

The worst knock-off's are the fake flash drives, some people problaby copy many gigs of precious memories or data and delete it thinking it's backed up

[@RoseAbrams]

no video about the released Vision Pro?

[@CloudPixel]

Ngl would have liked you checkout the iPhone knock offs that are shockingly close to the real deal, cause those are far more interesting but great video nonetheless, my dad fell for one of those from a FB marketplace seller, I would have loved a in depth video on that.

[@smart_think6]

yeah

[@johnpalmovis6256]

This should have been a sort!

[@Zero]

When will the Vision Pro video be live?

[@BocuD]

You could easily have tested the battery by charging it using a battery tester or by just monitoring the voltage during a discharge

[@paulwilson3759]

Wow, I’d forgotten how bad iPhones are!😂

A friend of mine bought a knock off iPhone years ago & was so thrilled. I still remember the 45mins bus ride we did the following week... she was trying to talk to someone and keep a sane conversation while the phone kept dying on her at random. It was brand new but couldn't even handle a phone call that should have been 5mins if it weren't for all the interruptions and lost network... I thought of lending her my phone but... nah. Better learn the hard lesson 😏

[@MrPatonMarshall]

Should analyze it's traffic and see if it was sending data to anywhere it shouldn't have been or dump it's firmware and see if it's got anything bad on it.

[@karasekjh]

Wow. Is it already summer in Canada?

[@fandydiadline]

I work at an independent repair shop, and whenever we receive a knock-off phone, we reject it for repair. The spare parts are hard to find, and the prices are usually high because their stock is limited. I remember when Galaxy S4 knock-offs spread like crazy; there were almost 14 types of them. In fact, we needed 14 types of displays to replace the screens because we didn't know which variant customers brought to our shop. Those were crazy times. I hope we don't have to go through that again. Thank you.

[@fandydiadline]

Yes, never buys shitty knockoffs phone. The 7-year-old iPhone is way better than the current year's copy.

[@eomoran]

The worst part of this is that people try to resell them as legit, and some even “better” fake the iOS. App store is usually where they fall down

[@ElectronStarCollapse]

Last time I used a product that was an Apple knockoff was the Franklin Ace 1200 computer. Other than the printer, it seemed like it worked as good as the real Apple II.

[@jameshodgetts7541]

the franklin ace wasn't a "knock off" in this sense. It was not a fake or a dupe, but a clone. A cheaper option expressly made to be compatible with the apple II and its software, it included the exact same processor and ram as apple were using, and even came with options that apple didn't include with their machines, like built in floppy drives instead of relying on audio tape storage. They were genuine competition, not a fake to dupe people into buying something they didn't know they weren't getting.

[@hectorvivis3651]

"It runs Android!" I must say, it would have been a magnificent troll if it ran Windows Mobile. I think I would have bought one if it did, just for the lulz if it wasn't that costly. (Yeah, I know I know, don't give money to scammers)

[@clax911]

Nice Apple Watch case and band.. which brands ?

[@arnoldmbuthia2687]

that's essentially a reskinned 2015 budget android phone

[@raphiseth6942]

I once bought a cheap phone off eBay as a "Spotify-Player" so i dont have to leave my Phone with my Bluetooth Box, was so slow that you cant really use it

[@Lumilicious]

This is what my uncles laptop is like and I hate it whenever he has problems and I have to come over to fix it. He refuses to buy something new.

[@willie69420]

cant even enjoy some AOA as a speaker test. worthless

[@Kytetiger]

This is a really good exemple of e-waste

[@00SNIVY00]

That CPU is about as powerful as the $15 Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, does have double the RAM and includes storage though. Parts wise, that phone is probably less than $50.

[@zamontajistite]

You should try some of the converted iphones. For example iphone 11 in 15 pro body

[@ocjadan]

Why is your iMac yellow again?

[@blacktrout]

Would it be possible to edit the ram allocation back to 1GB and see how the phone runs?

[@wlpaul4]

Shout out to the dude watching this on the 6:06 out of grand central terminal. I see you fam.

[@tigersusyt]

This is why some people think android is absolutely garbage, but it's not

[@marufbepary100]

I probably did have 16GiB of memory, 1GiB or RAM and 15 for Linux Swap. That means the phone taught thought it had 16 so it was using the much slower flash storage. Theoretically if you stopped using the swap, it could have actually been faster.

[@rhenceocampo3253]

Ahh there it is…Certo. Just what I was waiting for

[@Skradgee]

I feel like this video should have been a Short.

[@Plainapple287]

there are ways to actually view the real specifications in the dialer by typing in a code, and also to change said specifications, there’s a bunch of random Easter eggs all over the phone. The fake specifications are the tip of the iceberg really.

[@Peterstarzynskitech]

How has Mac address not gotten the Apple Vision Pro?

[@clebbington]

This felt more like meeting a sponsor deadline than actual coverage of the iPhone fakes industry

[@notbfg9000]

I had my hands on a fake iPhone recently. It worked really smooth, had nice screen, was a reskinned Android, but pretty believable. But then... I tested the camera and it was the worst camera you can imagine. 3gp video. Absolutely blurry photos. And the other two were fake. Way to ruin an otherwise usable phone.

[@kxp06]

wow, didn't know you could get scammed so badly... thought that they would at least give the real specs and not be able to fake those in the OS, but the more you know..

[@gregh9762]

With all that budget, they probably get the worst clone there is.. There are 1:1 clone out there that are sold within weeks after the original's release. Which does't surprise me until the 15 pro, because they changed a lot yet they managed to cloned the action button.

[@SimonBauer7]

still why buy a clone and risk it when you can have real specs with an actual android phone?

[@gregh9762]

@@SimonBauer7 he mentioned it in video, status symbol. Also there're clones of other things from apple cloth, airpod, and top samsung s and ultra line. These are popular items used to scam people looking for 'original sealed box' with lower price

[@illbebach8018]

We need more mac address! !

[@rickkarrer8370]

Please do one on the knock off iPod Classics. They actually look pretty good, but they could all be lies.

[@maslelviz]

My first Mac Address video that I watch on an Apple device. After all this time I decided to buy a Macbook

[@felixbelanger2659]

"We make moving pieces here, that's what we're known for" 🤣 This is why I watch MA even if I don't care about Apple products

[@sidewalkere]

A quad Cortex-A7 1GB/16GB phone was actually ok... 10+ years ago. When they costed ~$150.

[@luisfernandohernandez5310]

I think what you got there is an updated version of the "hiPhone" scam. The first one was sold in Latin America back in the Android (period, no number) days, it was a knock off of the iPhone 3G and, despite it being the new hush, hush thing... It died (at least in Mexico City) within the first 6 months it hit the stores brave enough to display it. A dónde of mine was trying to buy one and, after scouting the phone and Chinese tech mecca in CDMX, we couldn't find a single vendor that wouldn't react visibly irritated and reluctant to even hearing 'hiPhone". 😂😂 This led me to believe it was SO bad, they lost a whole lot of money and that's why this people (that usually hustle and try hard to help you get rid of your money) would be totally infuriated. 😂😂😂 After that day I stopped listening to this friend's advises at least tech-wise

[@JuanFmTech]

Phone Repair Guru has one that has a 1 to 1 iOS skin clone that could actually fool more than one, is also identical in the physical way down to the apple logo and action button, maybe get a better fake for the 300? lol

[@ferna182]

7:50 WHAT? Don't tell me this thing's a piece of crap!

[@B.D.F.]

“Wow, this iPhone sucks! No wonder I don’t buy Apple!” - Every person who thought this was an actual iPhone.

[@TheDeviousLight]

How does your channel not have any videos on the Vision Pro? Crazy….

[@th4nkyoub3n]

They don't have one yet

[@AKSisOnline]

7:06 ARC BROWESER!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@halycano]

While knockoff would be too strong of a word, the Android phone closest to an iOS experience I've seen is Tecno. Their HiOS (I know, not very subtle) is close visually. They are also good phones for their price range, imo.

[@harrisonmudge]

I dread to think how many of this type of device are being made. All that trash being manufactured 😢

[@william18miller]

running short on video ideas??

[@nich6089]

I bought a knock off pair of beats headphones in Hong Kong back around 2010 and they were surprisingly good sound sounding when compared to actual beat headphones and much better than alot of the other Asian countries I got/tried beats knock off’s in.

[@timofey-sak]

I had knock-off Airpods for $10, they were surprisingly useful. No comparison with the real thing in terms of audio quality and battery life though

[@ZedemMonk]

I had knock off 13$ Fake Earpods that didn't work without a Bluetooth connection and plugging into the lightning port. They would randomly disconnect and would drain my battery ridiculously, but at least the cord lasted longer than my original Apple Earpods that shredded itself within a few weeks of daily use. The whole experience made me finally give up on wired headphones and switch to wireless.

[@User-ju3zg]

Ah yes. Mac Address, Linus’ hated step child. Approaching 2 weeks and not a peep from this channel about perhaps a new product category Apple may have recently launched

[@CNGTunes]

You can almost certainly get a similar phone or the same phone for far less, maybe like 50-100 dollars. Did you intentionally pick the most expensive listing?

[@cwhitley.sawlabs]

I wonder if you could gut the Android distro to reduce all the bloat and background garbage.

[@Macusercom]

I wonder if they promise 7 years of software updates 🤔

[@Chimpur]

Bought some fake AirPods... total trash.. hard to connect... then sounded like tin cans... gave them to a friend.. he hates me now.

[@Daniel-dj7fh]

Is that thing running Android7?

[@alattice]

Funnily enough, if you know where to look you can get some pretty nice airpods knockoffs. Nowhere close to the real ones but for their price, beats the competition

[@Entertainment-]

I remember someone bought a fake Samsung S6 mini and I couldn't understand his rational. The mini was already a lot slower than a regular S6, and all it does was to physically appear as a Samsung. For the same price you could have bought a real budget Samsung phone that will perform better or buy the best spec'ed phone his budget would allow from Xiaomi or other lesser known brands.

[@Blitterbug]

THANK you for finally acknowledging that all Apple gear is essentially 'veblen goods'

[@chris-tal]

This nugget is sooo dingus that this video should have been made in cooperation with Dankpods! 🙃ForJonathan's question: I still remember somewhere around 10yrs ago I have been scammed into buying a counterfeit Sony MDR-V900HD studio monitor. Remember those 3GS knockoffs /w an analog tv tuner? They disappeared so quickly that I suspect they were as usable as this one.

[@plitt916]

I’ve seen iPhones that are very good mimics and you can only tell if you have a sharp eye for iOS. I’d like to see him find that kind of iPhone

[@TheOnlyKaas]

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