L8star BM10: The Mini-3310 with a lot of dubiousness
1.3.2018
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
Video producer Stephanie Tresch has taken a shine to a mini phone. It is smaller than her thumb and holds two SIM cards and a memory card. But behind the supposedly funny little device lies a dark market.
Smartphone scene, we need to talk. Because at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, video producer Stephanie Tresch discovered what she first thought was a key fob. The small device, almost as big as your thumb if you're a grown-up, is actually a fully functional feature phone. With a frightening number of features when you consider that it can actually do everything a mobile phone should be able to do. And then a few small functions on top of that.
Then we have the big smartphone manufacturers mucking about with hybrid SIM slots. Make up your mind: Second SIM card or memory card. Both are not possible. Both are possible with the L8star BM10. And the memory card.
The device is as funny as it is clever.
The L8star BM10 under the magnifying glass
The smallest phone in the world, as the lady at the L8star stand in Barcelona says, is something the small company from China is proud of. Because the following functions are built into the smallest space:
- Make phone calls
- Write text messages
- Alarm clock
- FM radio
- MP3 and MP4 audio playback
- Voice changer
The L8star BM10 packs all this into a housing measuring 68 x 28 x 13 millimetres. The 350 mAh battery promises a battery life of ten days. Then there's the matter of the SIM cards. You can install two SIM cards and a memory card in the BM10. You can store up to 500 contacts and 100 messages on the device itself.
The big manufacturers can go on and on about "we save space with the hybrid slot". L8star proves that it doesn't need that much space. I'm also sure that Nokia would win a court case against L8star, because the small mobile looks exactly like a Nokia 3310.
This isn't the only time Nokia is being mimicked in this article.
The dubious company from Shenzhen with its dubious colleagues
L8star is a company from the Chinese technology metropolis of Shenzhen. The company, which has 400 employees according to its website, is located in the Mindray building on South Road in the Nanshang district. In the sandstone-coloured high-rise, named after a manufacturer of technology for the medical sector, the company, which was founded in 2016, develops the smallest full-size smartphones and fitness trackers. Somehow, however, the now two-year-old company has managed to accumulate eight years of experience in the development of smartphones.
Even better: Mindray doesn't seem to take honesty about its corporate image too seriously either. On the manufacturer's official page, you can find the following, obviously manipulated image.
The whole thing gets one better. In the photoshop, a company called Konka is located in a building to the right of Mindray in a glass palace. Konka is also at the MWC, offering surprisingly decent knock-offs of current-generation flagships, including the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and Huawei Mate 10 Pro, as well as the iPhone 8. Konka is a China-based company that has had its biggest successes in Africa - Rwanda and Uganda specifically. This is consistent with the economic trend from China to relocate entire industries and their products to Africa.
Smuggled in the body
Back to L8star. Why on earth would a company build a phone that is too small to be really practical? What use case could such a device possibly have? Does it even need a use case if it only costs plus or minus 25 cent? That could be treated as a gag in this country. Or something like that. For whatever reason you find it funny.
The English daily press seems to have some clues. The miniphones are often sold on auction sites such as eBay or AliExpress as "BOSS Proof". BOSS stands for "Body Orifice Security Scanner". These are used to screen men and women who need to go to prison.
Obviously, as the British daily newspaper Metro, among others, claims in an article by journalist Adam Smith, the miniphones are perfect for serving time in prison and still having contact with the outside world. The feature phones are smuggled into prison by inmates in their bodies, where they are either used for personal use or sold. The market is booming, Smith continues.
In fact, it doesn't take long for a listing appears on eBay, pointing to properties that would suit a convict: 100 per cent plastic doesn't show up on a metal detector and Low Radiation can fly under the radar on frequency scans, depending on the hardware the prison uses to detect such devices.
Most auction houses online have strict rules about what they will and will not sell. Things that are helpful to crime are generally taboo. But this shadow economy with things like very small phones or lock picks is still going strong. And sometimes we come across these small items at harmless, well-organised trade fairs packed with security and laugh about it.
Because it's funny: win a no-prize
In the rough cut, Stephanie came across the following footage and asked me if I was typing something, "just like on the Nokia back then". Yes, I did. With spelling mistakes, but I'm sure you can figure it out.
If you figure out what I was trying to type, spelling mistakes and all, leave a comment and you could win a no prize. The no prize consists of nothing. Nothing at all. In other words, if you submit the solution, you can win nothing but fame and honour. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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