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I've been looking at some very cheap tablet computers made in China and one goes by the English brand name "Cube" or "Alldocube" or "cube51". Their Chinese brand name is "酷比魔方" (Kù bǐ mófāng).

I see that "魔方" is the Chinese name of Rubik's Cube and that "酷" is a colloquial or slang term like "cool" (as well as other meanings).

Even though "酷比" gets lots of Google hits it could just be a regular phrase. I see that "比" has a meaning "than", among others.

So does the brand name "酷比魔方" just translate to the phrase "Cooler than Rubik's Cube", or is "酷比" actually some kind of compound as well.

Google Translate translates "酷比" as "cool", which is one clue that maybe it's not just a phrase?

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I don't think 酷比 has any virtual meaning. But one can argue it means cool guy. 比 is a homophone of 逼, which is a homophone of 屄， which means female genital. It can be used to refer people. For example, 傻逼 means ass-hole. Similarly, 酷逼 means cool guy. Generally, 酷比 is just a name without any virtual meaning.

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  • Wow! Not what I expected at all - thanks. (-:
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 16:30
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There is no meaning for "酷比". I guess it could be just a transliteration of "cube", you see these two words are pronounced similarly.

While "酷" has the meaning of cool, "酷比" stands for cube, "魔方" means Rubik's Cube, all these words put together make an easy-to-remember and catchy brand name. Brand names don't always have a meaning, they just need to be cool and catchy.

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  • Oh yes of course! I saw "kùbǐ" at an earlier point and then completely forget it again when I asked the question here.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 16:32
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it might comes from 酷毙了(sounds similar) which means being awesome/cool. 酷比 doesn't have any meaning by itself.

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  • One reason for using 比 instead of 毙 may be to avoid the inauspicious 死 (death) radical.
    – congusbongus
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 5:48
  • "毙" here doesn't mean "make someone die by shooting" but is a complement to descript the depth of 酷.
    – xqMogvKW
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 6:06
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Google Translate translates "酷比" as "cool",

The reason why Google translated like this is that "cool" means "酷" (it may have many meanings according to different kinds of contexts, may be 爽 or 帅).

Strictly speaking, we Chinese usually don't use "酷比" but "酷毙"。"毙" here doesn't mean "make someone die by shooting" but is a complement to descript the depth of 酷.

You can also see many situations as (bold words are complements):

爽*歪了* (rapidly happy or comfortable)

发*大了* (earn lots of money)

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