A couple of Reuters reporters scoured electronics shops in Shanghai for an iPad clone until someone led them to a dark backroom on a fifth floor of one of the city’s many clone marts.
You can’t see a whole lot from the blurry pic, but they report that the counterfeit iPad sports three USB ports in what looks like a heavy-set, pumped-up iPhone. This isn’t the first iPad copycat to come out of the area, but this one looks more like the Apple device.
The price for the faux iPad is just slightly lower than the real deal 2,800 yuan ($410), compared to the iPad’s $499-$699 price. It runs a Windows OS.
“While the shape isn’t quite the same, the external appearance is very similar to the iPad, so we don’t think it will affect our sales that much,” an agent named Lin told Reuters.
Cloners struggled to source matching parts because of the quick two-month turnaround time for the first version’s launch. They expect to come out with a more similar version soon, Lin adding that this was a “rough” version.
It costs 2,800 yuan ($410), making it slightly cheaper than the iPad’s $499-$699 price tag.
The lack of USB ports have been a frequent lament about the first gen iPad: have they improved on the original?
Reuters, Via Washington Post
