Chinese companies have been producing cheap knockoffs of big name laptops for years. But you know what most of them lack? Big name branding. Fortunately, at least one Chinese manufacturer realizes that the same thing is true for fake brand name laptops as fake brand name handbags: They’re more attractive if you don’t know they’re fake.

With that in mind, said company has slapped the HP name on a laptop that bears a more than passing resemblance to the HP Mini 5102. Except it’s not an HP Mini 5102. How do I know? Because the HP Mini 5102 has a 10.1 inch display, not an 11.6 inch screen.

Of course, that means the knockoff also has a larger keyboard, which might be a bonus for some people. The screen is a high resolution 1366 x 768 pixel display, and the computer packs some of the same features as the HP Mini 5102, including a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, attractive red cover, and chiclet-style keyboard as well as 802.11b/g/n WiFi.

The knockoff also sells for just about $337 in China, although it probably won’t be available for that price in the US — or anywhere else, anytime soon.

On the down side, the real HP Mini 5102 has a 7200RPM hard drive, while the fake has a slower 160GB 5400RPM HDD.

via M.I.C. Gadget

Over the past year or two I’ve seen plenty of Macbook Air knockoffs come out of China. But M.I.C. Gadget has the first photos I’ve seen of a knockoff that goes the extra mile and actually comes in a box labeled MacBook Air.

Under the hood, this machine is all netbook, with a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and 4 cell battery. It sells for under $300 and ships with Windows XP instead of OS X. Even though the box quite clearly shows a picture of a MacBook Air with OS X installed. In fact, when you open the box you get a driver disc and Apple instruction manual. Unforutnately you also get a notebook that looks vaguely like a MacBook Air, but not quite like the product pictured on the box.

Design-wise, the clone does sport a glowing Apple logo on the lid and a MacBook-like island style keyboard. It has a 13.3 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display. It also has a removable battery, which is something you won’t find on a real MacBook Air. Of course, the MacBook Air battery is also good for 4 to 5 hours, while the knockoff runs for less than two hours.

M.I.C. Gadget has a boatload of additional photos and some hands-on impessions.

A handful of Chinese companies have been pumping out cheap knockoffs of the Macbook Air for at least a year or two. These notebooks tend to be thin, light, and feature keyboards and touchpads that look an awful lot like those on a certain pricey machine from Apple. But they also tend to be loaded up with Windows or Linux and bogged down by a relatively slow Intel Atom processor rather than the speedy Core 2o Duo CPU found in a Macbook Air.

Still, with the Air starting at $1499, it’s easy to see the appeal of these cheap lookalikes, which are often available in China and a handful of other locales for the equivalent of $400 or less. Now Shanzai.com is featuring the first-person account of someone who went the extra step and turned his knockoff into a real (kinda) Macbook by installing OS X.

The MacBook Air clone in question came from a store in the Philippines. It features a 13 inch display, Intel Atom N280 CPU, and GMA 950 graphics as well as a 3 cell, 3500mAh battery. Out of the box the WiFi card wouldn’t work with OS X Snow Leopard, but it was relatively easy to swap out the wireless card for a compatible model.

The end result is a $400 machine that’s pretty much a fully functional Mac. Of course, that’s not counting the price of OS X, which Apple doesn’t officially sanction installing on third party hardware. And the touchpad doesn’t work exactly that same was as a typical MacBook touchpad since there’s no support for two-finger gestures. You can see the laptop in action in the video after the break.

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I’m still not convinced that the MacBook Air was ever all that special. Sure, it’s super thin and elegant and capable of running OS X. But it’s also super expensive, and when I visit coffee shops these days I see far more people with MacBooks, MacBook Pros, or cheap netbooks than I do with a MacBook Air. That said, it still seems like the MBA is still the standard bearer for thin and lights. LG recently launched a commercial for the company’s new LG X300 thin and light laptop that looks an awful lot like the original MacBook Air ad. And in China, we’ve seen a bunch of Macbook Air knockoffs over the past year or two.

The latest comes to us courtesy of M.I.C. Gadget. What you’re looking at is a thin and light laptop with your typical netbook specs including a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAm, and a 160GB hard drive. The computer has a 3 cell battery and 802.11b/g/n WiFi.

It’s a bit larger than a netbook though, thanks to a 13.3 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display. The way I see it, there are three things this laptop has going for it:

1. It has a nice wide, full sized keyboard.
2. The glowing mac logo on the back is a nice touch, even if it guarantees we’ll never see this model sold in the US.
3. It’s cheap. Like, about $249 cheap.

On the other hand, the laptop ships with Windows XP or FreeDOS, rather than OS X. So if you really want it to act like a MacBook, you’re going to need to bring your own OS.

Chinese PC maker Malata has introduced a whole slew of new netbooks recently. And they all look rather… familiar. The Malata PC-98905, PC-91009, PC-91013, and PC-91007 appear to be clones of the Sony Vaio P, Asus Eee PC 1008HA, Asus Eee PC 1005HA, and Asus Eee PC 1002HA respectively.

What’s interesting is that Malata claims that all three laptops are available with 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 Pineview processors (although the Vaio P clone is also available with and Intel Atom N270 or N280 processor).

Like most Sony Vaio P clones, the PC-98905 doesn’t get everything right. In addition to using a different version of the Atom CPU (which is probably a good thing), the laptop has an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel screen instead of Sony’s 8 inch, 1600 x 768 pixel super-widescreen display. But the laptop does support 8GB to 32Gb of solid state storage, up to 2GB of RAm, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi.

The Eee PC 1008HA clone has a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display and supports up to 320GB of hard drive space, 2GB of RAM, and has 802.11b/g/n WiFi.The PC-91013 has similar specs, but it has a 6 cell battery and a slightly bulkier design.

Like the other Eee PC clones, the PC-91007 takes its design cues from an Asus product, but the netbook features virtually identical specs to the other models in the lineup when it comes to the Atom N450 processor, 10 inch screen, hard drive, RAM, and WiFi options.

via Netbook News.de

The Sony Vaio TT isn’t a netbook. Priced at around $2000, it’s far too expensive to even live in the same zip code as a netbook. But the VAIC TT is another story.

This Chinese knockoff looks like a Vaio TT and has a suspiciously similar logo plastered on the lid. But on the inside, it’s all netbook with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. It has a 6 cell, 4400mAh battery WiFi, and optional Bluetooth. The laptop has a 12.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display. Oh yeah, and it also packs a DVD drive, which isn’t something you’ll find on most netbooks.

The Sony Vaio TT, on the other hand, has a Core 2 Duo processor,  higher performance graphics, HDMI output, and an 11.1 inch display, not to mention an optional solid state disk. But here’s what the VAIC TT has going for it: It runs about $300.

via Cloned in China

It’s starting to seem like immutable law that if a company releases an innovative product, a Chinese company is going to produce a knockoff within a few months. And hot on the heels of the Gigabyte TouchNote T1028, a Chinese company has launched the 100 See Ban Gu which seems like a pretty obvious ripoff.

The knockoff features a 10.2 inch touchscreen display that can be folded down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. And like the Gigabyte TouchNote, it has a thn touchpad with buttons on the left and right sides instead of below.

The laptop doesn’t look quite as polished as the TouchNote, but it will probably be a lot cheaper. Gigabyte’s touchscreen netbooks run as high as $699 in the US, although that’s the price for a model with a 1366 x 768 pixel display and 3G modem. No word on whether the 100 See Ban Gu will sport either of those features.

What the Chinese knockoff does have is your usual netbook specs including a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.

China’s XZX Group is putting out an ultrathin netbook with an 11.1 inch display that looks a bit like a Macbook Air, but looks even more like an Asus Eee PC 1008HA.

The XZX netbook has your usual netbook specs including a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 procesor, GMA 950 graphics, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. But it measures just 0.93 inches thick, and weighs just 2.4 pounds. That doesn’t make it the thinnest or lightest mini-laptop around, but it’s definitely in the running.

Unfortunately, as Asus discovered when putting out a netbook with a similar form factor, you need to make some compromises to keep things this thin and light. The netbook has just 2 USB ports, no Ethernet jack, and a 2700mAh battery that is non-removable. It also has a mini display port instead of a full sized VGA port. And the touchpad has buttons on the left and right sides instead of below the touch area, even though it looks to me like there would have been room for a button below the touchpad.

The netbook will reportedly sell for under $300.

The Asus Eee PC 1002HA is a classy looking netbook thanks to its brushed metal finish and nice wide keyboard and touchpad. But I get the sense that it’s high price tag was holding it back a bit, and the cheaper Eee PC 1000HE, 1005HA, and other more plasticky netbooks from Asus have probably been better sellers.The Eee PC 1001HA cost about $499 at launch (although you can now pick one up for about $356 after rbate).

Now it looks like a Chinese company has decided to create a knockoff of the Eee PC 1002HA, but rather than slap an Intel Atom chip inside, the company has opted for a VIA Nano processor, which actually performs better under some circumstances, but which I believe sells for a lower price than Intel’s Atom processors.

No word on how much the knockoff will cost, but the odds of finding this machine outside of China anytime soon are slim to none.

via Shanzai.com

The HP Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam Edition netbook was one of the most expensive netbooks on the market when it was launched late last year. The $700 price tag netted you a thin and light netbook with a 10 inch screen. But the real selling point was the red color and floral pattern on the lid courtesy of designer Vivienne Tam.

Now that HP is phasing out the Mini 1000, the Vivienne Tam Edition may be something of a collector’s edition. So I’m not exactly surprised to see that there’s a cheap Chinese knockoff out there. The only thing that surprises me is that it took this long for someone to create a fake version of this netbook.

The clone was built by Qifang Electronics, and looks an awful lot like the original. The main differences are the fact that the knockoff has a 2.5 inch hard drive instead of a 1.8 inch HDD, and the clone costs about $300, or less than half the MSRP of the original.

To be honest, the colors on the Qifang version also seem a bit less vibrant to me. It looks almost like a decal instead of a painting. But this might just be a bad photo.